


The Killing Moon

by poisontaster



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Body Horror, Forced Pregnancy, Forced Relationship, Fusion (slight), Loss of Bodily Autonomy, M/M, Mpreg, Self-Harm, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-20
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 03:24:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 56,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5232107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The government says Sam has to have a baby.  John thinks it should be with Dean.  That's actually the easy part.  A story in 25 parts (with an epilogue).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ask

His father's hand on his shoulder feels like a lead weight, the kind he would make them carry at then ends of long cut poles as kids to build up their upper body strength so they could carry the big guns, the shotguns and rifles. He remembers days under hot desert skies, feeling like his arms were going to be yanked right out of the sockets. He remembers putting one foot in front of the other anyway. Because his Dad had said it was important.

This feels a lot like that.

"Sir?" He doesn't really mean it to come out as questioning as it sounds. It's not like his Dad wasn't perfectly clear. His father's instructions are always clear, military precision sharp. The uncertainty is inside Dean and he's embarrassed by the way it comes blurting up out of him like this, this wavering tone, as if he doesn't trust his Dad. As if he doesn’t know what's at stake here.

John's hand tightens a little. Dean doesn't know if it's reassurance or admonishment. "I know, Dean." His Dad's lips purse up tight, a hard line for a hard decision. "I know that I'm asking a lot of you, but this is Sammy we're talking about. If I could think of another way…"

"What about someone else?" Dean's eyes drop, even as he suggests it, stomach twisting. He digs the boot of his toe in the dust.

He doesn't have to look up to feel the shake of John's head, though. "This is our business, Dean. Our family. I don't want to bring outsiders into this, otherwise I wouldn't've asked you at all."

"Yeah, I know." He hates this. Hates squirming like he's still seven years old, but this… His Dad's never asked him anything like this before. "But I was just thinking, maybe another hunter, like Caleb…"

"Dean." His father's voice cuts him off. Dean turns his head and looks off towards the Impala where Sam is sleeping the sleep of the exhausted in the passenger's seat, head lolling. He looks like he went twenty rounds with a windigo and lost and Dean feels his chest close up tight and hot, just looking. Nothing supernatural did that to his brother; that's one hundred percent human intervention, bona fide, further proving that Dean just doesn't get people. Including his father. "Sam needs our help, son. He needs our _protection_."

Dean's hands ache as they ball up into fists. Between panic and just pure insane anger, he hadn't taken it easy on the guys that had attacked Sam; he thinks one of his knuckles might be broken. He knows his Dad's right. Things are going ugly fast and while Sam's no punk, he's still just one guy. One extraordinarily valuable guy.

Dean's head ducks. He still feels kind of sick, blush burning on the back of his neck and in his cheeks like sunburn, but his Dad's asked and Sammy needs and Dean's always known where he stands with that. Right smack in the middle. "Yes, sir," Dean agrees. "I know, sir."


	2. Answer

"So." Sam sidles around the cheap dinette table again, poking the papers strewn across the top without actually picking any of them up. "This is weird, right? This is totally weird."

"Yeah, weird's one word for it." Dean scratches the back of his neck, then shakes his head. Even saying that much feels like disloyalty, though. Like he's less than whole-hearted. And never mind the way he hasn't even looked at the bed. Neither of them has.

Mixed in with everything else—notes on old cases, newspaper clippings that could lead to new ones, his own bored doodles—are Sam's papers, **BREEDER** stamped across them in smeary blood-red ink. Dean doesn't know where his own are, stamped in black, but really, it doesn't matter. Sam's are the important ones. 

_Just like Sam,_ Dean thinks. _It's not enough for him to save the whole fucking world, he's gotta go and do it twice._

_…with his…man…uterus._

Dean shudders.

"I don't…" Sam hunches his shoulders, rakes a hand through his hair. "Are we going to do this? How are we going to do this?"

He's got that white-around-the-edges panicky look and Dean finally pushes up out of the chair and goes across to him, grabbing hold of Sam's biceps and checking him in place. "Sam. I just… Chill out, okay? I can't think when you're bouncing off the walls."

Sam's laugh is a little hysterical, a little wavery, but he lets Dean push him down onto the edge of the bed. He bounces up once—a flinch—then settles, hands moving restlessly over his thighs, down his hips. "Yeah," Sam mutters, not meeting Dean's eyes. "Yeah, sorry."

Dean sighs. "Sam— We don't have to do this."

He's not saying it for himself. Not for selfish reasons. Not… It's not for him. This is for Sam, who looks like he'll jump out of his skin if Dean gets a millimeter closer. Dean doesn't blame him, much as it hurts. 

_Don't you know I'd never hurt you?_

Dean takes his hands off Sam's shoulders, stuffs them in his pockets, takes a step back. 

"Don't have to do this when?" Sam asks, quieter but not calmer. "'Cause we gotta do this some time. We've got a year. A year to…to get me pregnant before they reassign me to someone else." Sam's lips reshape the words _someone else_ a second time soundlessly before he fiddles with his hair again and says, "Jesus."

And Dean knows this. The details are fuzzy and unfamiliar but the core ideals behind them—protecting Sam, taking care of Sam, of the family—are rock solid. This is imprinted in his bones like rings through a tree.

He can do this. He can do this for Sam.

Dean drops to his knees, taking care not to make it heavy, and lets his palms cup around Sam's kneecaps. Sam shivers a little, but he doesn't pull away, breath coming fast. "Sam." He uses the quiet, coaxing tone that always brings Sam's eyes to his like a skittish horse on a tether. His stomach gives a little turn at using it against Sam in this context, but he shoves it down. Old habits are hard to break, though; Sam's eyes slink at Dean's, unwilling, scared, angry. "I'll be good," Dean promises, kneading his thumbs against the bone. Sam shudders again and doesn't really stop, running on down through his skin. "I'll be real good, Sam, swear." He swallows, spitless down a dry throat. "Let me?"

The movement of Sam's head can barely be called a nod, but Dean takes it for what it is and reaches forward to put his hands on Sam's belt. And here Dean has another dilemma, looming fast and large on the horizon, because while he's had some encounters with dudes, he's always been on the receiving end of this particular transaction. 

Dean Winchester had _standards_ , after all.

Still, he thinks, how hard can it be? Unless he _hurts_ Sam somehow—and that's not gonna happen—it's going to be good. Or…satisfying, at least. Sam's a guy, after all; it's not like it should take much.

_I can do this. I can totally, totally do this._

He unbuckles Sam's belt and opens his jeans. He feels Sam's eyes on the nape of his neck, hot and prickly, heavy, like a hand and he works his tongue in his mouth, trying to gather up some moisture. 

"Dean." Sam's voice is soft and so is his hand when he hooks it under Dean's chin and pulls Dean's face up. "Dean?" This look is a question but Dean's got years of answering Sam's questions with lies. 

Dean smirks. It's his best smirk, honed sharp and wicked over the years. And despite how horrifically fucked up this is, Dean feels a small quirk of satisfaction at the way it makes color spill into Sam's face and his pupils stretch wide. He's still got it. 

Dean makes himself put his hand on Sam's crotch, rocks his palm over Sam's cock. Sam's not hard. Dean guesses he wouldn't be either, under the circumstances. He's going to have to work on that. 

"Dean, this…" Sam's blush deepens to the color of brick. "This isn't going to get me pregnant."

It won't. Dean knows that. Knows that that's really the end goal of this. But even with the government and their dad's approval hanging over everything, he's not ready for that yet. Not yet. "No, but I'll bet it'll feel damn good." Dean keeps stroking without letting his brain think too much about what his body's doing. It's not as hard as he thought it would be. It's kind of like hunting. 

And if he can make himself believe that, he can do anything. 

"Why don't we start small?"

"Not that small."

Dean groans and Sam slaps a hand over his eyes, flushing all the way down into his neck. "Oh my God, dude, I can't believe you just said something that fucking corny. Way to break the mood."

"Wait. There was a mood?"

Oh fuck you, 'was there a mood?' This is Grade A material."

"Yeah, for the skanks you're used to fucking maybe…" Sam stops. Dean stops. The easiness falls out of the moment like a dropped transmission and Dean can almost hear the screech. 

But this still needs to get done. 

"You can lie back, Sam," Dean says finally. He doesn't know what else to say. "You don't…you don't…"

"Dean, I can look." Sam sighs and his hand falls on Dean's shoulder, thumb rubbing thoughtfully like _Dean's_ the one that needs reassuring. "I want to look."

Dean wants to snap back something wise, almost does, crippled by his own reflexes. Biting it down burns like late-night chili going back the wrong way. Instead he tugs at Sam's jeans, forcing his brother's hips up, stripping him bare.

When Sam's pants and shorts are shoved to the side, he looks at Sam again—from the waist down, anyway—and finds him half-hard. He really isn't small. Dean kneads Sam's thigh absently, working himself up to it.

"Dean, we don't have to do this," Sam says and he sounds strangled. Desperate. "We can…we can tell Dad…"

_They'll take him away, Dean. They'll take him and give him to a stranger._

Dean swears, inside his head, and shoves Sam's thighs wide before he leans down and takes his brother in his mouth.


	3. Agony

Dean sits up when John comes and plops next to him on the splintered old bench on the porch. John's got a handle of Jack in his hand and, without a word, he puts it between them on the seat. Dean doesn't look at his Dad, just reaches sideways to close his fingers around the neck and drag it close. His mouth feels bruised and raw, sour from the vomit now secreted under a scuff of leaves and dirt.

The first sip burns over his lips; he can trace it all the way down until it splashes in his emptied belly and spreads, golden and loose. It feels like tears splashing down and Dean burps, not sure if he's going to puke again or what. He takes the decision away by swigging again, thick and heavy and just letting it fall, pushing everything back down ahead of it. He grunts when he can breathe again, wipes the bottle's lip with the tail of his shirt and then hands it back to his Dad. 

John doesn't look at him either. Just takes the bottle and swallows and swallows. His gasp is loud when he and the bottle part and the rasp of his stubble across skin is only a little softer when he wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. "Sam sleeping?"

Dean nods. _Yeah, you know Sam,_ he thinks, _comes once and it's lights out._

Except he hadn't really known that. Not before. Not any more intimately than two boys sharing a room when they're teenage and perpetually horny. Not like this.

Perversely, he remembers the way Sam's fingers had curled around his ear so lightly, brushing delicately at the skin behind it so it almost tickled.

It's nothing he can say or explain to his father. Not after John said to him, _Dean, you have to do this._ His belly rumbles again and John hands the bottle back. Dean takes it and lets it sit a moment between his spread out thighs, thumb flicking over the peeling edge of the label. Dean's had his whole life to learn his Dad and he knows, sure as he knows his own name, that his Dad might have ordered him to do this, but he doesn't want to know the details. John gave the word and now it's his job to fulfill it. Period dot.

Dean doesn't really know what's worse, the potential of failing his father—failing the family—or the consequences of that failure when the government (or what's left of it) comes to collect Sam as one of the last human creatures on the planet capable of producing a child.

Defeating the demon…that was supposed to be the end of it. Maybe not of the hunting, because Dean's got it in his blood just a little bit now, but the end of all this crushing angst. The end of the horrible, gutwrenching choices that had been eating him alive for the last however long until just the action of putting one foot in front of the other or opening his eyes in the morning had become _too much_. 

But it didn't all end with the demon. It had only gotten worse—for Dean, at least, and surely for Sam too. This might be fucked up, weird and wrong, but at least Dean was still himself. Dean hadn't been declared _property_ and lo-jacked like a Mazerati.

The screen door groans and Dean looks up to see Sam lingering like a ghost in the opening. The bruises on his face look just about as dark as his eyes and he still limps a little when he shuffles the couple steps to let the screen close behind him.

Dean doesn't like the way Sam looks at him and Dad; hunched and wary, like he expects _them_ to start beating on him, calling him all those fucked up names that sink into Sam's egg-head like stones _(abomination. freak.)_. He looks at them like they're not all Winchesters anymore and that makes the liquor in Dean's belly curdle and sour fast as anything. 

An unknown string of time unspools and then John shifts one way and Dean shifts the other like they rehearsed it and there's a space between them that Sam crams himself into, taking care to touch neither one of them.

"Thought you were sleeping." Dean doesn't mean it to come out accusatory and doesn't think that it does, but he also thinks he could have said it in the voice of Elmo the Muppet and Sam still would hear it as one.

"No." Sam reaches over and wrenches the bottle out of Dean's loose grip.

"Hey—"

"Sam." Their Dad's voice rumbles, thunder across dry plains and Dean can feel the storm brewing.

"What?" Sam's answer is hard, defiant. He tilts the bottle towards his lips. "M'not pregnant yet. Can't I drink with the men anymore?"

Dean watches his Dad tense and bulk up large like it's going to be another fight. The churn in his stomach becomes a steady, sickening swish-swish and it takes a moment for him to realize it's the sped up rhythm of his heart. Then John deflates, sighs and gets up in a dry groan of wood. The balance on the seat changes and Dean tilts in towards Sam.

"G'nite boys." His hand sketches a brief wave over his head as he clomps down the steps. 

Sam's seething under his skin. Dean feels it like heat, but Sam waits until Dad's rounded the corner of the cabin, heading back towards the woodshed where he's been bunking down before he bursts out in a hissing rush: "He can't even stand to fucking look at me, hardly!"

 _It's not just you, Sammy boy,_ Dean thinks and jerks the bottle away from Sam to take another swig.


	4. After

Sam has had too much to drink.

No, really. Sam is completely fucking drunk. 

Sam is not supposed to be drinking anything at all, part of his pre-pregnancy regimen, but at this moment in his life, Sam doesn't care. If he ever did.

He didn’t ask for this. He doesn't want this—the body glow he can't seem to hide under the sear of Jack Daniels, the well-pleased tingle that comes from letting his brother go down on his knees and…

…and…

Sam makes a thick belching noise as his belly roils and rebels. Dean fixes him with a sharp look. "Don't you do it, man. You drank it. You wanted to drink. Hold onto it."

Sam nods. And then Sam stops nodding, because moving his head that much only makes it worse. "Yeah. Sorry." A pause and a sidelong glance at his brother. Dean twirls the empty bottle between his legs simultaneously picking at the label with his long raggedy thumbnail.

When he'd… When they had…

Sam remembers Dean tracing arcs against his thigh with it the whole time, soothing, repetitive, distracting. He still feels it, like a cut except cold instead of hot. He keeps rubbing his fingers across it. He doesn't know if it's to blot or to mark it and when he catches himself, he makes his hand move, grabbing and holding onto the rough edge of the bench's back.

"Sorry," Sam mumbles again, meaning something else entirely. His head feels so heavy, weighing down his neck, and everything inside it feels cloudy, slick and impossible to grasp. "Jesus, Dean…I'm so sorry."

 _"Fuck."_ The bottle drops to the porch in a glassy clank. Sam doesn't know which sound makes him flinch more. Calmer, Dean says, "C'mon. Let's get you to bed."

Sam shakes his head. It goes a little easier than the nodding. "No, no, no…Dean—" Dean ignores him, getting up and manhandling Sam off the bench. At the top of their rise, Sam's greater height and weight—and utter lack of coordination—overbalances them and they stagger two steps sideways for Dean to crash hip-first into the railing. Dean cursed a lot and Sam tried to untangle his feet in something like order.

That and the swaying two-step into the cabin take all Sam's focus, narrowed down like Cyclops' eye beams ( _such a geek, Sammy_ ). At the same time, he feels eerily aware of Dean's body pressed against him in a way he's never been before. He's aware of Dean _as_ a body, the solidity of him, his individual parts, muscle and sinew and bone. 

He doesn't know what that means. He doesn't know if it means anything and mostly he feels like he's going crazy. 

"S'my fault," Sam admits mournfully and his forehead glances off the side of Dean's head as it flops on his neck. "Fuckin' _freakshow_."

"Shut it, Sam." Dean's tone is flat and forbidding. His fingers dig into Sam's side and if he thought he had a snowball's chance in hell of staying on his feet, Sam would jerk away. He should anyway; Dean's probably disgusted at having to have even this much contact with him.

 _Be a lot more contact real soon,_ Sam thinks and then he is slipping loose, slipping to his knees and vomiting in twisting sour heaves.

"Aw, _fuck_ , Sammy." And then Dean is next to him, holding his hair out of his face and patting his back in awkward swoops and circles. 

Sam chokes and then coughs, dragging bile back down into his throat again. It stings and threatens to send a second wave up from his stomach. His eyes burn too and it takes him a minute to realize it's not fumes. "I'm sorry, Dean. I'm so fucking _sorry._ "

Dean's arm slips around him briefly to squeeze his off shoulder, pressing him into Dean's side again. "Sammy…" Dean sighs. "We're too fucking drunk for this, dude. You need to just sleep it off, feel better in the morning."

"M'not drunk enough for this," Sam mutters as Dean tugs him up and away, down the hall to their bedroom. "C'n you _be_ drunk 'nuff to make it okay for yer brother t'suck you off?"

There are two beds in the bedroom because—schemes of impregnation or not—there are still lines. Dean dumps Sam on the bed too violently and Sam lurches for the edge, not sure that he's not going to puke again.

"Not the first dick I've ever had," Dean says and he sounds so matter-of-fact that Sam's head just about turns backwards on his neck as he whips around to stare.

Dean's got that defiant 'wanna make something of it?' arch to his eyebrows and they stare at each other for several blood-pounding moments before Dean bends to untie Sam's shoes and ease them off his feet. Sam curls up.

"Don't have to do that," he grumbles, tossing his head on the pillow and feeling like a petulant and whiny child.

Dean's sigh is louder and more exasperated—which should be impossible. "Jesus fucking Christ, Sam, would you please cut me a break here?" He jerks off Sam's other shoe and tosses it to the side. "S'been a long fuckin' day and, in case you hadn't noticed, m'a little fucked up myself. All this…" He waves a hand vaguely, "will be here in the morning for you to freak out 'bout then."

Sam curls up tighter around the burning heat in his belly and the icy cold of his limbs. "We should talk to Dad."

"What?"

Sam huffs and turns his face out toward Dean. "I _said_ we should talk to Dad."

Now that he's got Sam situated, Dean seems to have more trouble staying on his feet. Swaying, he puts out a hand to steady himself on the foot of Sam's bed. He squints suspiciously at Sam. "About what?"

"Finding someone else."

"Sam…what the fuck are you talking about?"

Sam pushes himself up, glaring at Dean who is as thick as molasses at the best of times, let alone when he's three sheets to the wind. "Someone. Else," he repeats slowly. "For me." Dean's expression doesn't budge or change and Sam falls back on the pillows, eyes closed. "I must have been nuts to agree to this."

"Sam…" He hears Dean come around to the bed's edge; he shifts incrementally towards Dean when his brother's weight settles on the mattress. When he opens his eyes, he can see Dean's drunkenness better in the softened lines of his face, the openness of his eyes. Dean looks uncertain and tentative and his hand comes to rest on Sam's stomach, rubbing small circles like when they were young and Sam had one of his many tummy aches. "Is that what you want? Someone else? A…a stranger? I thought… I thought we were trying to stay together."

Sam can't stand that look. That needy _Sam, don't go_ look. He shifts sideways—bringing Dean's hand more fully against his stomach—and flings his arm over his eyes. His mouth feels dried out and bitter, his tongue thick and lifeless. "I don't know." He doesn't mean for it to be a whisper. 

"Sam—"

"I don't want you to hate me." He blurts it out over his brother's words before he can call it back or lose his nerve. 

There is a long and hateful pause in which Sam feels his soul shrivel and blacken in humiliation and yellow dog-fear. 

Then: "You know… I know I call you a moron all the time, Sam, but you don't gotta take it so much to heart."

Sam lifts his arm from his eyes long enough to shoot his brother a pointed and sour bitchface, before making it his blindfold again. 

"Sam…"

It's Sam's turn to sigh, frustrated and filled to the gills with something he doesn't even have a word for. Maybe just Jack Daniels. "Forget it. Just forget I said anything, okay? Go to sleep, Dean."

Dean falls silent again, though his hand keeps making that same soothing circuit on Sam's stomach. If he were a stronger or better man, Sam thinks viciously, he'd move away from that easy comfort. 

_If I was a stronger or better man, I'd never have agreed to this in the first place._

And what does it say about him, that he'd rather be fucked by his own brother than given to some random dude off a government list of 'viables' like a candy bar or Christmas turkey? What does it say that his brother can put his mouth on him and make him come, as hard as he's ever comein his life? Was he always this twisted, down deep inside? Is that why he's here? What keeps him here? Is this why he let Dean drag him back into this, into them, into _the life_ all those many months ago?

 _Yes, Sam. Because you were secretly hoping to get fucked and impregnated by your brother. Brilliant. You come up with that one all on your own?_ Behind the lids, Sam rolls his eyes and resolutely stamps that voice of reason into nonexistence. 

And still Dean says nothing.

Sam breathes and tries to ignore his awareness of Dean, right there next to him.

Finally, Dean gets up and moves away. Sam makes a small, completely pathetic noise in his throat and turns his face more toward his pillow, curling up small again. He hears the clank of Dean's belt, the slither of his jeans and his shirts.

Sam's so busy concentrating on the ambient noise in the room that, when the mattress dips again, behind him, he's startled nearly out of his skin. His arm falls to his side and he twists around to see Dean crowding in behind him. "Dean…what…?"

Dean shakes his head. "Go to sleep, Sam." He pushes on Sam's shoulder to untwist his posture and slides closer still until Sam can feel the heat radiating from his brother's skin. A moment later, Dean tugs up the sheets and layered musty wool Army blankets to cover them both.

Sam shifts back and forth, unsure what to do with his limbs, his body, suddenly restless uncomfortable. Finally, he freezes in a pose and stays like that, breathing fast and shallow. 

Dean pokes him in the back. "Light."

Sam reaches up to the lamp and clicks it over, plunging the room into near-total darkness. He would think that would make it easier, but it doesn't. Not at all. This is weird. This is _so weird_.

Finally, stifled: "You don't have to do this."

Dean yawns. Through it, thick and almost unintelligible, "Yeah, I know." His hand snakes over Sam's side and resumes it's slow, calming circles. "Kinda the point, Sam."

Sam lets his breath hiss out, unaware until then he was holding it. He shuffles his legs a couple more times and then surrenders, both to Dean and to sleep.


	5. Almost

Waking up is a low and dirty series of rearguard actions where Sam tries desperately to cling to the shredding curtains of sleep only to have them unravel. About the time that he realizes his long and convoluted dream about his dad choosing _right then_ to do some repair work on the cabin roof (and what an _asshole_ John is) is really the nauseating throb of his own hung over head, Sam surrenders any pretense of being able to get back to sleep. 

For a while, he contents himself with lying there with his head under the pillow, feeling sorry for himself and completely disinclined to move. 

Then, just as his dreams shredded away, he feels memories from last night trickle in, slow and unwelcome. The bed is empty of anything but him but it occurs to him now that it wasn't always. He vaguely, sort-of, in the I-thought-it-was-a-dream way remembers whimpering as a rush of cold air hit his back sometime around asscrack of dawn and then a hand in his hair and a soft, "Go back to sleep, Sam."

He's not really sure, because of the whole drunk and sleepy part, but he thinks he thought it was Jess.

Sam's stomach makes a loud and unhappy lurch and grumble at that thought and he snakes out from under the pillow and pops up on hands and knees, waiting to see if it'll die down or if he's going to upchuck all over the place. His head doesn't like all this movement at all, but his stomach resigns itself to muttering evilly to itself. Sam let out a shaky sigh and slowly sat down. 

As always, the dark ink of the tattoo tucked in the fold between his forefinger and thumb catches his eye when he rubs his aching knees. It's reflex to smudge his opposite thumb over it, as if he can wipe it away. Underneath, he can feel the implant, welded to the bone. _Breeder_ , he thinks savagely and digs his thumbnail into the skin.

His…uterus ( _Christ, **uterus**_ ) had been as much a surprise to him as everybody else. Or…rather, he's got the doctors and one set of memories telling him he's always been like this. At the same time he has a dim, hazy recollection of a time and a body when it wasn't so and so does Dean and so does their Dad. None of them have said it aloud ( _of course not_ ) but Sam feels pretty sure that this—the plague and new crop of childbearing men—is the demon's final gift to them, world and Winchesters alike. Or joke. With demons, he's not sure there's a difference. 

He guesses it doesn't really matter. It's not like there's any way to prove it. And even if they could, it probably wouldn't change anything. 

_Fuck._ Sam grinds his fingers against his eyelids. _I'm too hung over and it is too early for me to be this morose. Just quit it, Sam._

He makes himself get up from the bed, scratching idly at his sour stomach under his shirt. The motion brings back the memory—somehow less fuzzy than the rest—of Dean's hand rubbing him into sleep. Sam lets his hand fall so fast it tingles all the way into his shoulder.

 _Shower,_ he thinks, raking his hand through his hair instead and skittering away from whatever half-formed thoughts his brain was throwing at him in revenge for pickling it last night. He walked stiff legged out of the bedroom and into the blessed dimness of the hall.

Sam doesn't turn the light on for his shower, either. The old pipes squall and squeal before finally settling into a teeth-rattling hum and it takes pretty much the whole shower before the water heats to more than lukewarm, but still Sam feels a little closer to _Homo erectus_ by the time he's carefully toweling his hair dry. 

And still no word, sarcastic or otherwise, from Dean. The cabin doesn't _feel_ empty, but it's quiet and that's just not normal. Sam wonders if Dean's avoiding him and a tired, grey-tinted sense of resignation seeps through him.

In the cabin's main room, there's a still-damp, scrubbed patch on the wood and the pine reek of air freshener, showing where Dean's tidied up after him. Sam's throat tightens up a little; he blames it on the freshener, thick and cloying. Then he hears the soft creak of weight shifting on one of the kitchen's aluminum-tube chairs and heads in that direction. 

"Dean?" Dean's sitting at the scarred up Formica table with the laptop open in front of him and his face propped in his hand so that his cheek sags. He's got on the wire-rimmed glasses the government fobbed off on him after his medical checkout to make sure he is indeed 'viable'. At the sound of his name, Dean jerks like his ass is on fire, sweeping off his glasses with one hand and slamming the laptop closed with the other.

Dean opens and closes his mouth a couple times before finally settling on: "Dude. Don't sneak up on a guy like that."

Sam looks down at his jean-clad legs and bare feet and then back at Dean, raising his eyebrows. "Isn't it kind of kinky to surf porn in the kitchen?" Sam looks around. "I mean…damn, man. I eat in here. …Where's Dad?" 

He hates that it takes a minute to screw himself up to that last question, and another moment to even out his voice so it sounds even. His squeamishness is unfounded, however when Dean—who's opened the laptop back up a sliver and is carefully navigating away from whatever he doesn't want Sam to see—flicks a finger towards the refrigerator.

Under an old and yellowing Papa John's magnet is a scrap of paper with **GONE HUNTING** scrawled across it in the 'readable' version of his father's handwriting. Nothing else. Just that, without even an estimate of how long he'll be gone or when ( _if_ ) he's coming back. 

"Fucking typical," Sam reaches out and rips the paper down, surprising even himself with the growling fury in his voice. 

Dean closes the laptop a second time and gets to his feet. "You want something to eat?" He shoves Sam toward the table. "I'll cook you something."

Sam burps at the suggestion and puts one hand over his mouth and waves the other. Dean laughs at him and frogmarches him by his shoulders to one of the chairs, pushing him down into it. "Little hung over there, Sammy?" Dean pats him twice on the shoulder then moves towards the coffee machine and its caffeinated liquid heaven. Sam puts his head down on the table.

Technically, Sam's not supposed to have coffee anymore than he's supposed to have liquor, but Dean sets a mug in front of him anyway and then goes back to the fridge for creamer. Sam makes a piteous whining noise of gratitude and lifts his head from the table only enough to hook his lip over the mug's rim and slurp. 

"I gotta go into town," Dean says. "We need stuff. I was just waiting for you to wake up."

Sam straightens up. "You want me to go with?"

Dean's pause is quick but obvious. "Nah." He pats Sam's shoulder again, exactly the same as before. "You hang out, maybe sleep some more. You look like shit."

They both know the real reason. This isn't the first town they've settled in. They've had to move twice already; once because a bunch of guys tried to kidnap Sam and once because a different bunch of guys tried to kill him. So now they live in a busted up cabin in the middle of nowhere and Sam stays out of sight.

"Yeah, whatever," Sam mumbles, putting his head in his arms again.

Dean shuffles his stance, then shuffles it again. "I'll just be gone a little while. There and back."

"Whatever," Sam says again. 

Dean curses under his breath and clomps away in his heavy boots. Sam thinks that he should have put on socks because now his feet are cold. A few minutes later, the Impala starts up and roars away, engine echoing its owner's displeasure. 

Sam sits and sulks for a while. Then, bored with that and in general, he grabs the laptop Dean left on the table and pulls it across to him. Dean might not have wanted him to see what he was looking at, but his otherwise complete lack of shame means he always forgets to clear his browsing history. Dean's porn is almost always good for a laugh and a week's worth of ribbing.

Sam takes another huge swig of coffee, the caffeine making his neurons start to fire on something like normal, and pulls up the last website.

He stares at it for a few moments and feels even the mocked up dregs of his attempted good mood puncture like a balloon. It's a how-to site. Dean was doing research. Actual honest-to-God research.

On anal sex. 

_Oh, God,_ Sam thinks, not sure whether to be horrified or touched. _Oh, **God**. He's trying to be **good for me**_.

Sam's hands shake as he clears the browser history and the cache. He blames it on the alcohol. Or the coffee. Either one. Whatever. He closes the laptop again, empties his mug into the sink and lurches back toward the bedroom. He needs several more hours sleep before he can think about any of this.


	6. Apology

"So." Dean forks his mashed potatoes and corn together in a messy free-for-all on his plate. "I got some stuff."

"Yeah?" Sam pokes his own food disinterestedly. More sleep and lots of water hasn't been able to lift the fuzz off his brain and if it it's up to him, today's a total wash. He wonders if Dean'll care if he goes straight back to bed after dinner and leaves the dishes for tomorrow.

Probably not. It's a little scary how patient Dean's been with him. Which, conversely, just add to the feeling of _weird_ around this whole chapter of his life.

Dean coughs and Sam surfaces enough to look across at him. Dean's ears are red, like deep, tomato-red and Sam arches an eyebrow. "Do I need to Heimlich you?"

"I got _stuff_ ," Dean repeats, as if that makes it any clearer. "You know? Stuff. For us."

 _For us…?_ Sam wonders and he watches the flush creep from Dean's ears down into his cheeks for several seconds before: "Oh. _Oh._ "

Dean rolls his eyes and stabs his meatloaf viciously. "And _I'm_ the dumb one."

"Geez, Dean, how the fuck was I supposed to know 'stuff' is now our secret code for our fucked up sex-life…"

Dean's fork falls to the plate with a clank and Dean's paper towel napkin slips to the floor as Dean slams up from the table and stalks out of the kitchen.

 _Son of a…_ Sam pounds his fist several times on his thigh until he's pretty sure he'll have a bruise and then gets up to chase after his brother. 

Dean didn't go far; when Sam comes out of the kitchen, he's sitting in the middle of the broken-down plaid sofa, unrolling the oilskin of their knives across the coffee table. The whetstone, rags and bottle of oil are already grouped next to the roll. 

Sam sighs. "Dean, I'm sorry."

Dean looks up at him like he wasn't just having an uncomfortable and awkward dinner with Sam _not two minutes ago_ and Sam's ongoing headache pulses dully behind his left eyebrow. 

_Is that how this is going to play?_ Sam wonders.

Then, a second behind it, _No, fuck that._

Sam comes all the way into the big room and sits in the armchair cater-corner from the couch, elbows on his knees. Dean picks a knife, a huge Bowie, from the line and tests the edge thoughtfully with his thumb before picking up the whetstone. Sam sighs deeply and heavily.

"Dean. I'm sorry," Sam says again, struggling hard not to let the frustration bleed to the surface of his voice. "I just…" His hands flop on the ends of his wrist, restless and vague. He watches them rather than Dean. "It's hard, okay?"

The sound of the Bowie hitting the table is a lot louder and more startling than the fork. Sam flinches and his eyes jerk up to his brother. The brick red color is back in Dean's ears, but it's not embarrassment this time. "Hard?" Dean scoffs. "Jesus, Sam…how do you think it is for me, huh?"

"I know that, I do," Sam hastens to say, surging forward to the chair's edge.

Dean rides right over the top of him, though. "All you have to do is lie back and think of England, man; I'm the one that's got to get it up, stay hard, _fuck you_ …"

Sam stands up. "Let's do it now."

"…not like I've been perving on my kid brother… _what_?" 

"Sex," Sam says succinctly. His throat and chest feel like they're on fire and he's really not sure how long his legs will hold him up. "Let's have sex, Dean."

"What, _now_?"

Sam spreads his hands. "Why not? You said you got the stuff. And we gotta do it some time, right? So…let's just do it."

Another time Sam might have taken some satisfaction at so thoroughly flabbergasting Dean. It doesn't happen often. But instead, all he feels is scared and unready. He wishes it was a less familiar sensation. 

On the other hand, familiarity means he's got lots of practice working through it, so instead of backing down under the weight of Dean's disbelieving look, he can just reach down, grab the hem of his shirt and tug it over his head. 

"Wh..what are you doing?" Dean yelps. He jumps to his feet.

Sam just looks at him, tugging open the button and zipper on his pants. "You know, Dean," Sam shoves his jeans down his legs, "I realize this is probably a lot better lit than you're used to…we could do this in the bathroom, if that'd be more familiar to you…"

Dean's fingers crush his wrist. Sam flexes against it, but Dean doesn't budge. "Don't."

The words freeze on Sam's tongue, but he tries to burn them into his look anyway: _Please, Dean. Please play along._

_I can't do this if you don't play along._

Dean curses and then jerks Sam by the arm. Sam trips over his puddled pants before he kicks one leg free and then the other. Just outside the bedroom, Dean shoves Sam hard into the wall. Sam's not expecting it, elbow glancing off the jamb so hard his arm turns numb all the way to his fingertips. Dean's hands come up like they're going to frame his face. He doesn't make contact though; his forehead wrinkles and he tries to come at Sam from a new angle before he lets his hands drop. "Do we kiss? I mean….Jesus! Do we fucking kiss?"

 _Fucked if I know_ doesn't seem like the right answer. Sam shakes his head. "We don't have to." He's still a little breathless from how hard Dean drove him into the wall.

"I just…" Dean's fist slams into the wall next to Sam's head. "I don't know how to do this!"

 _Go on, do it,_ Sam prompts himself. _You can fucking well do this, Winchester._ He makes his hand move forward to reach between Dean's legs and palm his cock. Dean hisses and starts to jerk away, reflexively, before he remembers and makes himself stay. Sam can feel the vibrating tension in Dean's body, a thrumming war, as he moves his palm, his fingers. 

_Not the first dick I've ever had._

Dean's eyes are half-closed and so is his mouth. Sam looks at him, trying to see something else, something different than what he's always seen, something different than his brother. Maybe trying to see what those other men—whoever they'd been—had seen.

"You can…" His first attempt comes out as an unintelligible croak. Sam clears his throat and tries again. "If it helps, you can pretend I'm someone else."

Dean's eyes open. The expression that crosses his face is gone too fast for Sam to follow but the way he thwaps Sam across the head is crystal clear. "Such an idiot, Sammy."

Sam's throat feels so dry; his voice only comes out a whisper. "I'm trying, here, man."

Dean's breath hisses out and his fingers trail down Sam's side, shocking goosebumps from his skin. "I know." 

They got rid of the rest of their clothes on their way to the bed. Sam doesn't know how to touch men, how to touch Dean. Dean is tense when his hands move over Sam's skin, but it's not foreign territory to him. He knows what feels good. Sam wonders if it's only been since the plague or if it was something Dean did before, when there were still women to go around. 

Sam flops down on the mattress and scoots over to leave room for Dean. Dean opens the nightstand drawer and takes out the tube of lubricant, not meeting Sam's eyes. When Dean settles on the mattress's edge, Sam reaches and slides his palm up Dean's spine and then down. Even when they were kids, Dean liked having his back rubbed.

Not that he ever got it done much.

A shudder runs through Dean's body. Sam sits up the rest of the way, lets his second hand join the first, a firm, hard skid up and then down. Dean's skin is warm, warmer than Sam's, and softer—less rough—than he expects. A moment later, Sam wonders why he thought Dean's skin would be toughened.

"Dean, it's okay."

Dean nods, jerkily, not looking around. Then he reaches back and pets Sam's leg, just above the knee. "Get on your stomach, Sam." His voice is deeper, but stressed, like it could break any second.

Sam's gut seizes up, hot and cold, but he slides over, rolls over and goes to his belly. He puts his arms under the pillows, where Dean won't see when he clenches them, and he turns his face out, away from Dean.

The touch of Dean's hands on his leg isn't startling, exactly, but Sam jumps anyway. Immediately, Dean's fingers dig into the muscle, massaging, soothing. Sam's nails dig into the mattress but he makes the rest of his body relax in slow degrees. After a moment, Dean nudges Sam's legs apart, touching him, caresssing.

He can hear Dean working his cock, louder than all the times it was muffled across a room, under covers, trying to be secretive. There are no secrets any more. Not in Sam's body, government owned, not in Dean's.

It's way too soon by the time Dean kneels between Sam's spread legs, easing him open and spreading lube around and inside. Dean's fingers aren't exactly small; when he tightens up, Dean's other hand massages rough circles at the small of Sam's back. 

"It's okay, Sammy. Shhhh. I won't hurt you, I promise, but you gotta ease down, ease down, shhh, it's okay, it's okay…"

Sam doesn't understand why Dean keeps shushing him—and is starting to feel really annoyed about it—when he suddenly realizes the frantic, fast-breathed whimpering he'd sort of pushed to the background of his awareness is really coming from _him_.

"Dean…Dean…"

Dean's lips brush the spot right behind Sam's ear. "It's okay, man. Really. Just…ease up. Relax. It'll be okay, c'mon…"

Sam tries and Dean tries, and after a while, it's not so bad. Dean moves—bends—his finger a certain way and not-so-bad, becomes wow-actually-kind-of-interesting. That doesn't last nearly long enough, though before Dean's withdrawing his finger and instead jostling around to nudge Sam with the head of his cock. 

"Dean…"

"Shhh… Kinda focused here, Sam."

Surprisingly, it makes Sam laugh, startled and sharp. Dean's cock head slips over Sam's opening and away.

"Dammit, Sam!"

Sam turns his face into the pillow. "Sorry. Sorry. Being still now."

The second time, Dean pushes just a little into him— _Sweet Jesus_ —and it takes everything Sam has not to jerk away and call the whole thing off. After a moment's driving pressure, Dean slides away again and Sam groans.

"It's not like I've ever done this before, you know," Dean pants irritably, lining up a third time. His hips piston hard this time and grudgingly— _so fucking grudgingly_ —Sam's body opens.

"Dean!" Sam doesn't even mean to; his body just lurches forward and it takes Dean clamping down on his shoulder to keep him in place. "Oh, fuck…Dean. I can't…I can't…"

"You can," Dean insists, in the same tone of voice he's used all Sam's life to push him into things from tying his shoes to killing a demon. "Hang on, Sammy. Just…it'll be okay, just…let me…"

Dean shifts and moves and Sam pushes his face deeper into the pillow, biting his lip until he tastes blood. Out then; Dean pulls all the way out, squirts more lube in a thick squelch, and then—too soon—pushes back in. It's a little easier, but that's like saying Sam's a little tall.

 _It doesn't have to feel good,_ Sam reminds himself grimly, as Dean starts a slow, shallow rhythm. _It just has to get me pregnant. It doesn't have to be good._

Dean kneads his back, his hips, murmuring apologies and reassurance constantly, hypnotically. Sam grabs onto the sound of Dean's voice and hangs on, breathing deep. He's not even aware of the tension leaching out of his body, ebbing gradually away, until Dean suddenly slips deeper, plunging against that same spot he'd found previously with his finger.

Sam's cry is startled this time instead of pained, but the result is the same—Dean slows and then stops. "Sam?"

"No…" Sam gropes backwards. "Don't…it's okay. Don't stop."

"You sure?" 

"Yeah." Sam pats Dean's hip. "Yeah."

It takes Dean a minute to find the right angle, the right rhythm again, but once he does… _goddamn._ Maybe not all of Dean's cockiness is undeserved. 

Afterwards, Dean seems content to lie, collapsed on top of Sam. He rolls grudgingly aside, though, after Sam elbows him viciously in the ribs. Sam flops around onto his back and enjoys the delirious freedom of unrestricted breath.

"Dude." Dean's growl is simultaneously irritated and sleepy. "Stop wriggling around."

Sam squirms uncomfortably. "I can't help it. It's…" He shifts again. "I feel all…squishy. Like…I can feel it kind of…oozing out."

"Jesus, Sam. What a fucking image." Dean groans and hides his face in his hands.

"It's gross!" Sam insists, stung. "I just…it's gross, okay."

Dean levers up on his elbows. "Well, do you want to put your legs in the air?"

Sam turns his head and glares. "Why would I want to do that?"

"For the…" Dean makes incline gestures with his hand. "So that it tilts… _you know_! Don't look at me like that! Women do it all the time."

Sam sighs and adds a new item to the list of the way his life completely sucks. Feeling stupid beyond belief, he raises his legs up in the air. "This is so fucking _dumb_."

It's Dean's turn to sigh, heavy and exaggerated as he shifts around on the bed.

"What are you doing?" Sam eyes him narrowly.

"Being the most awesome big brother ever," Dean answers, shifting to where Sam can rest his legs over Dean's back.

"Well," Sam says, "it's not like there's a lot of competition for the spot." But he reaches down as best he can and fiddles his fingers gratefully through his brother's hair.


	7. Apathy

Dean doesn't have his cell to check how much later it is, but he knows it's been a while when he hears the growling purr of their Dad's truck idling up the driveway and around the side of the house.

His sigh of relief is quiet but at the same time, he feels suddenly twice as aware that he's naked, sweaty and sticky, tangled around his little brother. Shame and revulsion stab deep, twisting in his gut. 

"Well, at least he's not dead," Sam says suddenly, making Dean flinch.

Dean snorts. "We faced down a demon, man. Of course he's all right." They listen to the truck park and the engine cut out. Dean turns his head back toward Sam. "I thought you were asleep."

Sam shrugs, shifting a little, and suddenly there's a lot more room between them, even given the narrow confines of the bed. "Sorta. Dozing." Sam scratches, nails rasping against skin and hair. "I want a shower."

"Not yet."

"I know that, Dean." Sam still sounds sleepy but irritation puts an edge on his voice. "Think I'd be lying around in my own juices if I didn't know that?" He wriggles on the mattress again. "Or _your_ juices?"

"And manly juices they are." Dean crosses his arms behind his head. He doesn't want to think too deeply about how he's less bothered by Sam's comment than he would have been a couple hours ago. It's enough that he's not as freaked out, post-coital and comfortable. 

"Ugh. Dean."

"What?"

Sam sighs. "Never mind."

Dean smiles a little to himself and lets his eyes slip closed again.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?" Sam's voice has the tentative, wheedling tone that never means anything good; Dean's answer is equally cautious.

"What you said before…"

"When was that?"

"Yesterday." Sam tilts his knees up and Dean wonders if he's still…oozing. Ew. "You said… You said I wasn't the first one. The first guy you'd been with."

 _Oh, God._ Dean's arms come out from under his head and he pushes himself up on his elbows to look at Sam. "Yeah," he agrees slowly. He's not ashamed exactly, (because everyone knows Dean's short on shame and on the scale of things to _be_ ashamed of, he guesses a few one-night stands with guys ranks far lower than fucking his own brother) but it's something he's never talked about with either Sam or his Dad and it's a little weird. "Is that okay?"

Sam huffs a little; it sounds like surprise. "Y-yeah, it's fine. Why wouldn't it be fine?"

"I don't know. Why wouldn't it be fine?"

"I don't know either. It _is_ fine. I just wasn't expecting it, that's all."

"Aw, c'mon, Sam…I know you think I'll nail anything that looks at me crossways."

Sam turns on his side, so that he's facing Dean. He really does need a shower; Dean can smell him, simultaneously rank and sweet. "Well, I know that was true when it was girls…"

He's kidding. Dean knows Sam's kidding. At the same time, the acid in his stomach burns a little hotter, filling him with false heat. 

"…just didn't know that door swung both ways."

"Are you sure it's not a problem?" Dean asks sharply. "Because it's sure starting to sound like it's a problem."

"No. Dean—" Sam reaches out to brush Dean's shoulder and it's all Dean can do to not flinch away. "I'm just surprised."

"Why?"

Sam sighs. "Because, in case you hadn't noticed, Dean, you're not a real secretive kind of guy."

"I have secrets!"

"Name one."

Dean flounders for a minute, his mind a frozen blank. Then inspiration hits. "If I _told you_ , it wouldn't be a secret anymore, would it?" he asks smugly.

Sam snorts and his hand slides away. "Yeah. That's what I thought."

"I _have_ secrets," Dean insists.

"Yeah, Dean, okay."

"Like…James Bond type secrets."

"If you say so."

Dean pokes Sam in the side, just where he knows Sam is most ticklish. Sam squawks and bats his hand away, which of course, only makes Dean jab him again. 

"Quit it, Dean!" Sam's hands close over Dean's and they wrestle for control. "I'm not the only one that's ticklish here, you know!"

The threat—and the evil stab of one of Sam's bony fucking knees—makes Dean subside. By unspoken agreement, they roll back to opposite sides of the bed. Finally, Dean says, quietly, "I didn't tell Dad that you were going away."

The mattress squeaks but Sam's silent a long time before he answers. "Yeah. You didn't."

Dean nods. "Damn right."

Sam's quiet for so long Dean thinks he might have fallen back to sleep. Except he knows Sam hasn't, too much tension in the bed between them. If Dean tips his head back, he can almost see over the tree-line, the last of the moonlight playing silver across the branches. Away from streetlights, the moonlight always seems so much brighter.

"Did you do it before?" Sam asks. "I mean…before?"

Dean's breath sighs out softly. "Yeah. Sometimes." He considers. "It wasn't like a _thing_ or anything. It was just easier sometimes. Faster."

"Better?"

Dean turns his head again, even though he can't see much more of Sam than his outline. "Where's all this coming from?"

Sam shrugs, a shift and sigh of linen. "I never did this. With guys, I mean."

Dean rolls his eyes. "Yeah, Sam, I got that." He chews that over for a few moments. Then, nudging Sam in the side—less ticklishly than before: "Not even at Stanford?"

"Nah." Sam sounds embarrassed. "I got some offers and stuff…"

Dean snorts. "Yeah, I just bet."

"But I never went through with any of it."

"How come?"

Another shrug, telegraphed by the pillows. "I don't know. Scared, I guess."

Dean punches Sam in the arm lightly. "Dude. You're a Winchester! Scared of what?"

Sam laughs, low in his throat. "I think mostly of what you and Dad would say."

"Huh." Dean scratches his stomach idly. "That's pretty fucking lame, man."

"Dean!"

"Dean, what? You thought you were never going to see us again." It's Sam's turn to punch Dean and he's got much bonier knuckles. "Ow!"

"Serves you right," Sam answers smugly. "And I knew I was going to see you guys again."

"Not to hear you talk about it before." Dean's trying to be all cool and blasé about it, because what the fuck? He totally knew Sam would come crawling back someday and anyway, Sam's here now…but he's not sure Sam buys it. 

"Dean." Sam's voice takes on what Dean calls his 'Mr. Lawyer Man' tone. "I knew I'd see you guys again."

"Aaaah." Dean waves a hand. "That's just your psychic shit talking."

Sam sighs. Dean sighs and then rolls over. Knowing Dad, he's probably going to be up at asscrack of dawn—and expect them to be—and Dean should get some sleep. Especially if he's going to get cleaned up before Dad sees them.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?" 

"I like kissing."

"Well, good on ya, then."

Sam sits up and the mattress tilts, sloping Dean toward him. Dean really needs to start sleeping in his own bed. "No. Dean. I mean it. I like kissing. I want… If we're going to do this, I want to try kissing."

"Aw, man… Do we need to talk about this now?"

"I'm just saying. If this is going to work, we should talk about what we like. What… It doesn't have to be horrible."

"Are you saying I'm a bad lay?" Dean rolls back over toward the center of the bed.

"Oh, God, Dean. I don't have time to assuage your ego, okay?" Sam snaps while Dean tries to figure out what 'assuage' means. "I'm just saying. We could be better. If we figure out what we like."

"You don't honestly want to kiss me," Dean groans.

"Does that mean you honestly wanted to fuck me up the ass, Dean?" Sam asks sweetly.

"Kissing, hmm? I'm a pretty good kisser, if I do say so myself."

"And of course, you will."

"Just keeping it honest, Sammy."

"Since when?"


	8. Action

Dean wakes up with his face pressed into the nape of Sam's neck and his cock—his hard, distantly aching cock—nestled between the cheeks of Sam's ass. He jerks, first instinct to yelp and shrink back across the bed. He controls it fast, though, hair-trigger responses clamping down on hair-trigger reflexes. 

Sam moves a little, a sleepy and meaningless wriggle, and then settles again. Dean lies frozen, all his signals crossed and robbing him of any kind of certainty. A year ago—hell, six months ago—he knew what to do, how to act, what to say. There was the routine of years to fall back on anytime he wavered. Now he has to overwrite all that with something new and there aren't any clear lines of sight.

He'd been dreaming something. He can't remember exactly what now but it'd been comfortable and pleasant and something about the smell of Sam's hair reminds him of it. He closes his eyes again and breathes it in, trying not to give into the trembling sense of _wrongness_ twisting through him. 

Sam murmurs under his breath and pushes back into Dean. It wouldn't be so terrible if it didn't bring him that much more in contact with Dean's stubbornly hard cock, which is a lot less discriminate about where it lays its head.

 _And that's saying something._

"Dean?"

Dean freezes again. "Yeah?"

"Why is your dick…" Sam takes a deep breath and then lets it out noisily. Dean tries to put as much space between them as he can without, you know, actually moving. "Oh, yeah. Right."

"I was just getting up."

"Yeah, okay." Sam's tone is guarded. Dean starts to shift away from him when Sam turns over on his back and puts a hand out. It falls on Dean's thigh and again he has to fight down that knee-jerk reaction to pull away. "No. Wait."

"Wait?" Dean repeats carefully, not moving. 

"I…yeah. You wanna?" Sam's head is tilted down and away so Dean can only see the taut line of his mouth. 

"We could," Dean agrees, still cautious. "If you want."

Sam shifts uneasily again, so his body tilts in toward the center of the bed. His dick's hard too, but Dean doesn't make the mistake of thinking it's for him. "Yeah, okay."

Dean nods. He reaches for Sam, palming his shoulder and tugging Sam a little toward him. Sam plants his hand on Dean's chest, halting his forward momentum. "I want to do more fingering before you just go at it, dude."

"I fingered!" Dean says, stung. "I fingered plenty!"

"You fingered with _one_ finger. And immediately followed with your dick."

Dean grins. "You saying I got a big dick, Sam?" He nudges Sam with his knee. "You got some penis envy going on there?"

"I do _not_ have penis envy!" Sam pinches Dean's pectoral and twists. Dean yelps and bats Sam's hand away. 

"Bitch!"

"I don't have penis envy," Sam repeats. "There's a big difference between a finger and a dick, Dean. Even yours." 

"Fuck you, even m..mmph!" Sam's lunge forward is graceless; his lips crash hard into Dean's, mashing Dean's mouth into his teeth. It goes on for a long, punishing moment before they both instinctively angle and adjust pressure. Dean's seen Sam with girls before; seen how he kissed them. Dean's never thought about it a whole lot, but the girls always seemed happy. And Dean knows he's no slouch in that department either, so it seems like it should be easier.

But instead, both of them seem to be fighting over who's going to be the 'girl', arching and shoving and trying to take control of the whole thing. It doesn't sit well with Dean to let someone else run shit, let alone Sam—who is still the _younger_ brother, after all. But then he thinks about Sammy's freaky uterus and the fact that he's not the one that's got to take the dick-end of this deal and he thinks maybe he can bend.

Just a little bit.

Dean opens up his mouth and lets Sam go for it. Sam makes a noise in his throat, a quiet, half-moan. It's shocking; the sound of it goes right to Dean's cock, turning wood into steel. Sam writhes a little closer, dragging his body all along Dean's and brings his hands up to cup Dean's face. It's not that Dean's never had anybody touch his face before, but it was never anybody who could palm half his head with one hand. And damn, but that's kind of hot too.

Dean's hand splays over the knife point of Sam's shoulder blade; he pulls his brother down onto him harder. Sam makes that same noise again, louder and Dean thrusts up into him, sliding their cocks together sliding his hands everywhere and suddenly all about hearing Sammy moan.

It's a little embarrassing how long they go on like that, making out like it's middle school all over again but finally Dean pulls back and gasps, "Sam, Sam…dude, let me grab the lube, man. We gotta…I need to grab the lube."

Sam laughs shakily into Dean's mouth and draws away a little too, wiping spit from his mouth ruefully with one finger. "Yeah. I just…" He blows his breath out. "Damn, Dean."

"Yeah?" Dean grins and scratches his head before he reaches over for the tube still sitting on the nightstand. "Well, you know, you could use some more practice, but you do all right."

Sam snorts and pushes Dean's head back before he bends and scrapes his teeth right across the sweet spot on Dean's neck. "Guess I'd better practice then."

"Oh. Oh, fuck." Dean nearly loses his grip on the lube, eyes rolling back in his head as Sam really puts on the pressure. Lot of girls, they're afraid to bite that hard, though they'll claw up his back just fine. 

"Tell me I'm good," Sam mutters against Dean's jugular, his voice vibrating through Dean's skin. "Tell me I'm _awesome_ , Dean." He nips hard then sucks, hard enough there's going to be a hell of a welt later on. Not that Dean has any problem with that. At the same time, Sam's hand fumbles between then to curl around Dean's cock. The ball of his thumb finds the sweet spot under the head and strokes it hard. "Like…like this?"

"Yeah," Dean grunts, which requires a pretty superhuman effort on his part. "Jesus, Sam, yeah."

 _"Tell me,"_ Sam insists, voice growling deep, rumbling.

"All _right_ , you freaky bastard, you're good!"

"Awesome." Sam shakes his head a little, worrying his teeth in Dean's skin.

Dean arches up, moaning deep in his throat and clutching Sam's shoulder. Sam growls again, this time without words. "Jesus, the Mona fucking Lisa, all right?" Dean's voice comes out pinched thanks to Sam's grip on him. His balls are drawn up so tight he feels like he could almost come like this.

"All right." Sam lets go of Dean, all at one and pulls back onto his knees. "Now let's get this show on the road." He rolls over, toward the foot of the bed, leaving Dean gaping at the bare expanse of his back, the tempting curve of his ass. 

"You are so going to pay for this later," Dean promises, sitting up slowly—and painfully—and flipping the lid on the lube all but forgotten in his hand. 

Sam stretches out more and brings up one of his knees. "Just shut up and fuck me now, okay?"

The seriousness of this comes back to him like a douse of cold water. Dean runs his hand up the length of Sam's thigh, hairs tickling against his palm. "I'll be better this time, Sam. Promise."

Sam just nods and puts his forehead against the quilt. 

Dean takes his time stretching Sam, teasing his prostate until Sam is moaning and pushing back on his hand. Sam said the inside of his thighs is especially sensitive, so Dean runs his fingertips over the skin there in idle patterns until Sam gasps, "Dean…Dean, okay. Now, all right? Fuck me _now_."

Sam is still so tight when Dean eases in, careful as he's ever done anything. The squeeze around his cock, the heat, the sweet lubed friction…it's hard to remember not to just slam home, harder not to come, his concentration narrowed to the snakelike flex of his brother's spine. They're both panting and half-soaked with sweat by the time he's sunk balls-deep; Dean waits, letting Sam adjust, squirming and grunting softly with the effort.

When Sam eases backwards, Dean takes it as his cue to move, slow, deep strokes. He can smell Sam's hair as the heat of Sam's body rises; it makes him want to bury his face in it again, makes him want to bury himself in Sam again until he's covered in it, that scent, that aroma. 

"Sam…"

Sam reaches back for him. "Harder," he says, blunt nails digging into Dean's arm. "Need it harder."

_Yeah, okay._

It's what his body's been screaming at him to do all this time anyway; hard, jabbing thrusts that make Sam cry out hoarsely and squirm back on him, tightening on every push. Dean's riding right along the crest of orgasm when Sam stammers, "Dean…I can't… Can't come. Please…"

Dean can't say it's exactly instinct that makes him reach around and grip Sam's cock, other than he doesn't have another word for it, but at the brush of Dean's fingers Sam lets out his loudest moan yet, pushing forward into Dean's grip and then back, onto his cock. 

It's Dean that comes first, twisting and grinding deep, but Sam's only a couple flicks of Dean's wrist behind him and they crash down onto the bed so hard it thunders against the wood. Dean slithers up and wraps himself around Sam, arms and legs, thick and stupid with orgasm and Sam's hand folds over Dean's, fingers digging hard.

"…good, you smell good, so fucking good…"

The whispered sound of his own voice follows Dean down into sleep.


	9. Abrasion

When Sam came back from his run, the Impala was gone and his father's jeans and boots were sticking out from under his truck. Sam jogged to a gradual halt and gave himself a couple minutes to stand, hands on knees trying to get his breath back. 

Shortly into the first mile, he'd discovered the mistake of trying to run when freshly fucked, but he'd pushed on anyway. There was little enough else to do while cooped up at the cabin. While he panted, John rolled out from under the truck, stripped down to his t-shirt and smudged with grease across his chest and both arms. "Where have you been?"

Sam's startled by the pulsing, taut anger in his father's voice. "I went for a run." It's a struggle not to sound defensive. "Where's Dean?"

"Dammit, Sam—" John sits up, arms bent across his knees. His mouth is a flat, pale line in the darkness of his beard and his eyebrows are pulled in low over his nose. "What've we told you about wandering around by yourself?"

"I wasn't wandering!" Sam protests. He's unsurprised but disappointed by the speed with which his hands curl into fists. "I didn't even leave the property."

"I don't care where you went, Sam; you got no business going off on your own like that!"

"I'm not a kid or a prisoner, Dad. If I wanna go out, I'm going to go out. There's nothing you can do to stop me."

John's mouth twists and he scratches the back of his head, reminding Sam of Dean. "You're wrong about that, son, but you're lucky I'm not gonna. But what are _you_ gonna do if—when—it goes down like it did in Missoula? Or Kingsport?"

Sam flinches from the reminders, the sense memory of too little space, too many hands. He remembers his pants around his ankles. He remembers the prick of the knife against his throat and the thrum of his heart almost drowning out the Bible verses being spit in his ears. But the adrenaline flash of fear only feeds his anger, heated and malignant. "Isn't that why we came all the way up here? So we could hide me in shame?" Sam demands. "What's next? A burkha? Or even better…maybe I should just never leave the house at all. Too bad the cabin doesn't have a basement; you and Dean could chain me down there and throw table scraps down the stairs."

He forgets how fast his father can be, even after all these years. John lifts Sam half off his feet and shoves him back into one of the spindly third-growth birches scattered around the cabin, knocking the breath out of him. A second later, he's recovered enough to shove his Dad off him; John's already backing off.

"Your brother and I have done everything we could to keep you safe, Sam. All your life." John's voice is shaking as he points one thick finger at Sam. It'd cost him something to manhandle Sam that way. " _All your life._ "

"I never asked you to! Either of you!"

"You didn't have to. That's what a family is. What they do. I can't believe after all the shit we've been through, you don't know that!"

"That's really rich, coming from you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Suddenly, Sam is tired. So fucking tired he feels like he could tank right here. "Nothing," he mutters and turns to head back into the cabin. "Forget it."

"No," John insists. He reaches for and grabs Sam's shoulder, pulling him back and sideways. Sam digs in and jerks free before his Dad can get a good grip. "Don't start something you can't finish, son. Now. What the hell'd you mean?"

"I mean _this_ ," Sam says thinly through gritted teeth. "I mean _us_. Two brothers fucking and their father barely able to look at them, even though it was _his_ idea. You treat me like a freak and Dean like a whore and don't you dare tell me…" Sam doesn't get to finish his sentence as his Dad—right on cue—shoves him into the tree again, harder this time. Sam's teeth close on the tip of his tongue and he tastes blood.

Even so, he laughs. Laughs and then spits the blood to the side. "Better hope I'm not pregnant yet, Dad, or maybe you just fucked it for all of us."

"Don't, Sam." His father shakes his head. Distantly, Sam hears the Impala's basso profundo growl coming up the drive. He wonders if John does too or whether he's too mad. 

"Let go of me." It's harder with the tree at his back, but Sam rips free of John's grip a second time and heads for the house. This time John doesn't stop him.

Dean comes through the tree cover at the moment that Sam hits the steps. Dean honks twice, goofy grin on his face. Sam waves, two curt pumps of his hand, but keeps going, slamming the door behind him. He still wants badly to sleep; he's out of shape, the run was harder than it should have been and he hasn't slept well. He's _sore_ , in places that have never been sore before and it makes him feel panicky and weird. If he sleeps… If he sleeps, maybe he can forget all this for a while.

Instead he heads for the shower. It feels like steam should come off his body at the contact of the cold, mineral tasting water, but instead it just racks him with goose bumps and shudders as he lets it sluice over his head and shoulders. It half-soothes the scrape on the small of his back from where he made contact with the tree and it's not long before a spike colder than the water threads its way through his guts as he considers that his words might have been prophetic.

 _Can_ he be pregnant yet? For a while, he and Jess had volunteered at one of the campus help lines and he'd heard all manner of tearful stories from girls naïve enough to believe it couldn't happen the first time. All the same, and even though he's under government mandate—Sam's fingers pinch the hated implant chip between them again—the doctors had told him it probably wouldn't be easy.

_"We don't know how it works yet, really," Dr. Azarian—who'd insisted on being called Dr. Dave—had said apologetically. "We've found…a kind of underground, of men who found themselves…impregnated and concealed it while things were still…"_

_"Normal?" Sam interjected, eyebrows lifted._

_Dr. Azarian's lips pressed together. "Well. I was going to say more oriented towards female childbearing. But yes. For a given value of 'normal'."_

_"And the men?" Sam prompted, curiosity overriding his desire to get out of this assless paper gown and away from Azarian's many shiny implements of Sam-torture._

_"Ah. Yes. They'd put together a kind of support group on the Web. Very hush-hush, of course and completely illegal but also quite extraordinary."_

_"So they did it. It can be done."_

_"Well, of course it can." Dr. Azarian patted Sam's shoulder in a way Sam's sure was meant to be reassuring. "But, as most of the men involved were not—intitally, at least—medically trained, obviously the veracity of their data is in question. The NIH has it in review now."_

_"So what's the point?" Sam asked, hearing the frustration climb into his voice. He, Dean and Dad had been in some weird, dire straits before, but nothing like this._

_"The point is that, miracles of nature aside, men are not meant to be the child-bearers of the species. It is…anomaly. It is fluke. And so while you are capable of getting pregnant, it is likely to be a long, frustrating process."_

_"Right. So…lots of assfucking, then?" Sam asked, mostly to watch 'Dr. Dave' sputter._

"Yo, Sam-may!" 

Sam jerks as he hears Dean thunder the cabin door open and call. A second later, he laughs at himself and at Dean for being so irrepressibly himself. Of _course_ Dean is going to come bowling in like a hurricane. 

"Where you at?"

"I'm in the bathroom, you jerk!" Sam shouts over the spray. Dean grumbles something unintelligible and his boots clump further away.

Sam finally picks up the bar of soap—and if he can't go into town himself, he's got to convince Dean to buy something other than Irish Spring, Jesus—and lathers up. Washing his ass is a delicate business, no longer mechanical and perfunctory. He's reminded at first touch, the deep ache and the surface sensitivity. When the soap is rinsed away, Sam runs a gentle and exploratory finger over his hole, not dipping in. He's careful enough that it doesn't hurt, but he does still feel ridiculously delicate and even that much is enough to make him shiver. 

_Dean was here,_ he thinks, a thought simultaneously numbed and wondering.

The first time had been so _bad_ , not like the blow-job at all, so hopelessly blundering and awkward and _painful_. He hadn't even come and Dean hadn't noticed the difference and Sam had been grateful. 

The second time though…

Sam doesn't know. It was still weird. _And_ awkward. And Sam's still having problems with the idea of being fucked by anyone, let alone his brother. But.

_It was good, too._

Sam ducks his head under the spray again, though the hot water heater is finally starting to kick in and it's less effective than it was a few minutes ago. But rationally, he knows nothing is going to wash either the thought or the feeling away; that he'd been fucked by his brother and on some level he'd liked it. Liked it enough to come.

He thinks again of his time on the help line. He'd only come across a male rape victim once and the guy hadn't orgasmed but Sam had had the words ready anyway, the ones the counselors had drilled into him, about the prostate and physiological response, separate from both desire and trauma… _It's not your fault._

But Sam isn't a rape victim. And what happened with Dean…it wasn't unwanted. 

It's not the same. 

_…you treat me like a freak and Dean like a whore…_

Sam's startled again as Dean pounds on the door. "What, did you _drown_ in there? C'mon! Lunch is getting cold!"

"I'm coming, you freak!"

Dean laughs. "I don't need to hear the dirty details, man. Just shake it off, tuck it in and let's go!"

Sam snorts and then starts coughing as the shower water spurts up his nose. Dean taps the door one more time and again, Sam can track the footfalls of his boots across the creaking floors.

The water's turning cold again. _Really cold._ Sam rushes through a fast shampoo of his sticky hair and thinks again about the words he threw at his Dad.

_Freak._

_Does it bother you because you think he's wrong, or because he might be right?_ Sam wonders, shutting off the water and reaching for the towel. The water never got warm enough to lay more than an anemic layer of condensation on the mirror; Sam wipes it away with one hand and looks at himself in the mirror. 

His body looks the same as it always has, not that he's ever spent a lot of time contemplating it. But as he runs his hand down the flat wash of his abs, he hears the quiet whisper from the back of his mind, _freak._

He's shivering. 

Quickly, Sam layers himself in clean clothes over still damp skin. He'll pay for it later, scratching like Dean put itching powder in his clothes, but the less he has to look at himself, the better. He wonders what Dean brought for lunch.


	10. Above

"Dean, what are you doing?" 

The moment the words came tumbling out of his lips, Sam should have know how this was going to go. He should have zipped his lip, turned around and gone in the bedroom for that nap he so desperately wanted. 

But he's a Winchester through and through and he didn't do any of that.

Dean gave him a strange look, twirling an onion ring around on his index finger idly. "You hit your head in the shower?" he asks. "'Cause from where I'm sitting, this looks a lot like having lunch."

"That's not what I mean!" Sam's shirt is sticking to his back and he jerks it loose while Dean just keeps staring at him. "Okay, maybe that is what I meant, but not like you think!"

Dean's face changes, all at once, _something_ flicking down in front of his eyes to turn them hooded and guarded. It always creeps Sam out, how fast Dean can do that—just shutter everything away behind a hunter's face, a face like _Gordon's_ face. A face that can kill and not feel anything about it. 

Dean stops twirling the onion ring and takes a bite of it, but Sam can't tell if he likes the taste or not. "I just thought you might want something a little more hi-octane than the crap I've been making up on that shitty stove," Dean says indistinctly, crumbs of breading spraying with his breath. 

Sam did. Sam does. The smell of the grease and the cheese and the onions is something he didn't really even notice he was missing until it was laid out there on the table in front of him. But this really isn't about lunch. 

"I just…" Sam really didn't do a good enough job drying his hair and sluggish trickles of water are sliding coldly down his neck. He slaps them impatiently and wipes a hand across the ass of his jeans. "You can't keep doing this, Dean!"

Dean sighs and props his boot up on the chair closest to Sam, leaning back and looking bored. "So what'd I do this time? I'm not the one that dropped your toothbrush in the toilet, I don't care _what_ Dad says…"

"What?" Sam has a second to contemplate the full horror of that before he yanks his brain back into place. "Ew. _Dean._ No." He mentally bookmarks himself to replace the brush later with one of his spares before going back to his original train of thought. "What I mean is, you can't keep acting like this."

"You know, Sam, if I had any idea what the hell you were talking about, I'm sure I'd be offended. Really. But unless you put that advanced vo-cab-yew-lary to good use…" Dean makes a 'get one with it' rolling gesture with both hands, "I'm kinda in the dark here, man."

"You're not my husband!"

Once the words are out of his mouth, Sam wants to shrivel up and die. Or at least call them back. But instead he only gets to watch Dean's eyes go wide and his eyebrows knock back almost up to his hairline and Dean's boot fall off the chair it's resting on. 

"Whoa." Dean shakes his head and then stands up. "Not sure where we stepped off into the Twilight Zone here…"

"You know what I mean."

"No, I _really_ don't."

"Where exactly do you think this is going to go, Dean?"

Dean's eyes widen again and he looks from the table to Sam. Sam's throat feels too hot and tight. He know Dean doesn't understand; he's not sure he understands himself, except for this feeling burning a hole in his gut and forcing all the words out ahead of it. "I thought we were going to have _lunch_ , Sam," Dean answers, as if to a very slow child. "And then I thought maybe I'd go and shoot some stuff out back before I forget how. And _then_? If I'm feeling really frisky? I was thinking about watching _New York Minute_ long enough to remember what a woman looks like and spanking the monkey." He plants his feet and spreads his hands. "Now, somewhere in there I missed the part about…weddings or commitment ceremonies or whatever mating ritual your crazy brain's come up with…"

"No," Sam insists. "No, no, no…"

"Quit interrupting me!" Dean shouts. Sam rolls his eyes and gestures. Dean pauses, clearly not expecting Sam to give in. "No, that was it," Dean admits.

Sam leans back against the doorjamb. "Dean… Look, man, I appreciate all you've been doing, but this… How do you think this is going to work, exactly?" His voice lowers, softens, without his conscious volition. "Are you going to take care of me? Forever?"

There's confusion moving through Dean's expression now, the look of a swimmer pulled out of his depth. "We've been doing okay so far." Dean's voice is less confused than unwilling, surly and childish, well aware he's being maneuvered and not sure how or how to fight back. 

But because he's Sam, Sam the outsider, Sam the argumentative ( _Sam the traitor_ ), Sam pushes a little further. "And the baby? If this works? What…we're going to raise the kid together?"

Dean's eyebrows draw down and the crow's feet below them draw tight. "Well…yeah. S'my kid too, right? I mean…m'not just gonna walk away from my responsibilities, if that's what you're thinking…"

"Dean." Sam leans forward a little, trying to make his brother understand. "How are you going to do that? _Who do we tell her you are?_ "

Dean doesn't understand at first. Still. But, all jokes aside, Sam knows his brother's not stupid. So he waits and lets Dean fumble his way through it himself and knows the moment it strikes home by the way his brother's pupils blow wide and Dean shuffles a little on his feet.

"Well…" Dean scratches the back of his neck.

"Are we going to lie?" Sam asks, softly. "Tell her you're somebody you're not? That you're not Dad's son? Or that I'm not?" The part of him filled to bursting with all this bitterness and vitriol wants to snipe that Dad and Dean would probably prefer it that way anyway. But it's not true. He knows it's not true and it's not the fight he's looking for, in any case. "Are you gonna be her daddy? Or are you gonna be her uncle? Because I don't know that we can have it both ways."

Dean opens his mouth. The silence of the cabin seems fraught, overloud, and in it, the intake of Dean's breath seems also too loud. But Dean doesn't say anything, eyes avoiding Sam's. Sam doesn't even realize his hands are fisted until a flash of pain tells him his nails are digging too hard into the tough skin of his palms.

Finally, Dean lifts his head and Sam braces himself. "Why…why do you keep saying _her_?" he asks and it's not the question Sam was expecting. Not at all. His breath blurts out like someone kicked him. "Did you…?" Dean makes a vague gesture at Sam's midsection. "Are you…?" It's interesting to watch Dean blush. "You know."

Sam reaches out and locks his fingers on the opposite side of the jamb, his legs suddenly unsteady and troublesome. He's shaking his head. "No. I don't know. I don't…" Why _did_ he keep saying 'her'? "Look—it's not the _point_ , Dean." Sam runs ruthlessly over his own malformed train of thought, trying to steer them back to the topic at hand. "The point is, we're _not_ …married or life-mates or whatever. We're brothers. And I just… I don't know how to not be that with you." He laughs suddenly without meaning too and fights the impulse to slide down the wall to the floor. "I mean… You act like this doesn't even _faze_ you, man."

Dean's jaw juts suddenly, hard, stubborn bone. "So…because I'm not sitting here whining about how fucked up and weird this all is, there's something wrong with _me_ ," Dean says, sounding like he's testing the words out on his tongue. "Is that the drift of this conversation we're having here? Because…because I'm doing what I can, to keep you—and Dad—and this family safe, I'm the pervert?" Dean takes a half-step forward, into one of the chairs, which slides away with a moaning grate of rubber across worn linoleum. "You think I like this, Sam? You think this is fucking _easy_ for me when all my life, I…"

Dean's mouth closes so fast it makes a snap.

"No, Dean. Spit it out. What d'you got to say?"

Dean shakes his head. "Don't make this about me, Sam. Just because you're freaking out…"

" _Yeah, I'm freaking out!_ " Sam retorts, throwing his hands up. "Why aren't you?"

"Because this is what needs to get done!" Dean roars in return. His hands are balled up too, the veins like wire, standing out from the skin. "And if this is how it goes down, if this is how I get to keep my family together and fucking alive then, yeah, Sam. This is how we do it. Because I'm not losing you and I'm not losing Dad and whatever we have to tell this fucking kid, I don't give a fuck, but I'm not walking out and I'm not walking away because it'll—or he or she, or what _ever_ —is gonna be a Winchester too. And that fucking _means something_ to me!"

Sam lets go then; just makes the long, slow, slide down the wall, burying his face in his hands. He's not crying, but he's not sure that it's only because he doesn't even really feel like he's got air to breathe. 

Dean stands where he is for a long time, breathing hard and the floor creaking restlessly under his feet. But eventually, he comes over and squats down on the floor next to Sam. "Dude," Dean says and punches Sam lightly on the arm. "It's just fucked up and weird, okay? Can we just… Can't we just agree that it's fucked up and weird, and leave it at that?"

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever," Sam answers, muffled behind his fingers. A few more struggling breaths and he can lift his head. It feels like more of an accomplishment than it should be. "You really kind of suck at this, Dean."

"Pffft." Dean makes a noise through his teeth. "I am totally awesome at this. You just cannot appreciate the wonderfulness of me through the veil of your complete lameness. Plus you're probably hungry."

"I'm starving," Sam admits, accepting the hand Dean holds out to him. Dean rises and then hauls Sam up after him. Dean stands close to him for a second, watching to see if Sam's got his feet under him, before he gives Sam some room. "I haven't had lunch today, you know."

Dean grins at him. "Well. We'll have to do something about that.


	11. Alley

_There are too many of them._

_Too many hands all over his body and he doesn't know who they belong to. They grind his face into the filthy brick, fumble under his clothes, strip them away. Inside, fear is bright and sharp, a scalpel wielded without precision. Outside, he's slow and sluggish, unable to think, move, fight._

_He needs to fight. He knows he needs to fight._

_This is all wrong._

_"Please," he wants to say, but he can't make the word trip off his thickened tongue and anyway, Winchesters don't beg. The hand on the back of his head pushes his cheek harder into the wall regardless, as if they heard him. He feels his cheek abrade, tear and bleed._

_"C'mon, hold him, **hold him** …"_

_"I wanna turn. C'n I have a turn with him next?"_

_"You wouldn't even know what to do with that. Hell, y'barely know what to do with your own dick, dummy."_

_"We need to not be fuckin' around. They're gonna be looking for him in a minute."_

_"We got time. I wonder which of 'em he belongs to, the pretty one or the old man."_

_"Hell, they're probably both banging 'im. Or maybe the old man's banging 'em both."_

_"That's really gross, man."_

_"Would you just fucking **get on with it**? If you're gonna fuck him, do it and quit fucking around! I'm telling you, those guys looked like trouble."_

_"Quit being such a puss and hold his goddamned leg. If he kicks me one more time…"_

_Close, closer than any of the other voices, right in his ear: "…so good, gonna fuck you so good, stick my dick in that tight little ass and come…know you want it, smell it on you, sweet, so sweet, could see you wanting me from all the way 'cross the bar, gonna give it to you, give you what you want, so sweet, so slow…"_

_Move, move…why can't he move?_

_Dean comes, Sam reminds himself, clawing at both the wall in front of him and the fabric of the dream around him. Dean and Dad come, they get you out of this._

_…except shouldn't they be here by now?_

_Bodies. So many bodies. Hands. Between his legs, under his shirt, on his thighs and ankles. Bruising into his wrists, his biceps. So many fucking hands. His Dad taught him to fight, but not against so many. Cocks; one rutting against the cleft of his ass, one sliding against his hip. Someone twisting his arm down to guide his hand into their pants, rub against his shrinking palm._

_He's hard. He hates that he's hard, hates their fingers touching him, hates their voices, whispering, crooning, overly familiar._

_"You like it," the voice whispers. A tongue traces out the curve of his ear. At the same time, the wet head of a cock, circling his rim. "You like being fucked."_

_**You don't need Dean or John to save you,**. The voice comes from inside him, welling up like poisoned well water. **You don't need anyone. You can…save yourself.**_

_He knows what that means._

_No._

_No. Not that. Not that way._

_**They will rape you. They'll rape you repeatedly. Until you break. Until you bleed.** _

_I'm not a murderer._

_**I think we both know that's not true, Sam.** _

_No. I won't!_

It's an effort to push himself up, physically and metaphorically. To propel himself out of the dream, gasping and sweating, strangling in the tangled sheets. 

"Sam?" Dean's cloudy, sleep-fuzzed voice comes from the other bed along with the creak of bedsprings. 

Sam's hands claw over his skin, still crawling with the memory and ghosts of others. Still, to Dean he only answers, "I'm fine."

Dean's snort is disbelieving. "Vision?" The mattress creaks louder as his weight shifts.

"No." Sam throws out a hand, even though Dean probably can't see it in the dark. "I mean it, Dean." He shivers. "I'm okay. Just…just leave me alone for a minute."

There's a long, drawn out pause before Dean says, "Yeah. All right, man." The covers whisper and the mattress protests as Dean shifts around and burrows in again. Sam listens to Dean beat the pillow into submission and then thump his head into the center of it with a loud sigh. It's familiar, expected, like a dog turning three times before it deigns to settle and Sam lets it wash over him while he sits and chafes his cold, goose-pimpled skin.

It's not the first time he's dreamed about them—his would-be rapists. He's never mentioned it to Dean; it's not hard to pass off one set of nightmares for another, and Sam's had no shortage of bad dreams in the past few years. There's no reason to it. He doesn't even know why it matters. Nothing happened; Dad and Dean to the rescue, as always. 

After what the demon put them through, he'd think that the actions of his fellow humans would hold few surprises or disappointments. Except that was never really as true as you thought it was, was it? And until that moment, he'd never thought—had never _had_ to think—about the more far-reaching consequences of his new 'status' in the world.

_Breeder._

Sam fucking _hates_ that word.

And the whole messy nimbus of bullshit that goes with it. 

He had no business yelling at Dean the way he did. For all intents and purposes, Dean _is_ his husband. And it's not Dean's fault that he's always been able to make the best of his circumstances with an ease Sam just doesn't have.

 _Yeah, because no one's asking **him** to have a baby,_ Sam thinks.

Except they are. Sam is. Dad is. It's not the same, but it isn't any better. Not really. And Dean is doing what he always does; trying to bear up under the pressure. Hold up his end. Manage.

And Sam's doing what he always does, too. 

It's not the most embarrassing thing to realize about himself…but it's up there. 

_You can save yourself…_

He hasn't had a vision since they came back up, out of Hell. Since they defeated the demon. Sam's afraid to wonder too much about what that means, but sometimes—occasionally and mostly in dreams—he still hears its voice, uncertain if its real ( _can't be_ ) or simply some fragment of its darkness still lodged in him like flaws in amber.

He hasn't told Dean about that, either.

But though the words are from his dream—nightmare—the tone of them is different, more himself, more his own. They still make him shiver, but for different reasons. It's been a long time since he's wanted to be like Dean in any conscious way, hero worship giving way to inevitable disillusionment and resentment when your idol turns out to be only flesh and blood after all.

Later still, with time and distance and a whole lot of growing up, he respects Dean, the things he's done and does with flawed flesh and blood. At the same time, alongside his respect, has always been Sam's burning desire for separation, independence, to be defined on his own and on his own merits. He drew the lines between them, around himself, needing that delineation almost as much as he needs the oxygen in the air. 

And now, in this, Sam finds he wants to be like his big brother all over again. 

Dean, who can say _this is how it is_ , and have it be enough. Dean, who has the most faith of anyone Sam's ever seen, and never mind his hate-on with God. 

_You can save yourself,_ he thinks again.

( _I don't know how_ )

 _Start by trying, dumbass._

"Dean?" He wasn't ready for his voice; it trips and strangles, coming out as hardly more than meaningless noise. Sam clears his throat and tries again. "Dean?"

Though he knows—knows—Dean was asleep only moments before, a cautious, "Yeah?" comes back after only a second, only slightly thickened.

Sam sighs. Not because of Dean and entirely because of himself. "Scoot over." 

Dean grumbles sub-vocally, but he rolls over and shimmies back toward the wall, leaving the warmed space where his body was for Sam. If Sam wants it. 

It's an effort of will to make himself get up from his own bed and cross a distance of less than twelve inches, to sink down and slide his legs under Dean's covers. To lie down next to and in the shadow of his brother's body. Still more than half-asleep, Dean hums to himself, smacks his lips and proceeds to sprawl across his half of the bed and half of Sam as well. It's not cuddling so much as Dean's utter lack of disregard for anything as mundane as personal space, especially _Sam's_ personal space. He remembers how much he hated it as a teen, awkward and miserable in his own body and convinced that the reek of _freak_ came off of them in waves, even without Dean's hand-over-fist help.

It's a little weird how grateful he feels for it now, standing in for everything that's changed and everything that hasn't.

_Start by trying. Dumbass._

It amuses him how much _that_ mental voice sounds like Dean.

Sam closes his eyes and tries to relax.


	12. Always

It's late and, after the reruns of Farscape go off (hel _lo_ , Claudia Black), there's nothing interesting to watch. Dean's about to turn it off and turn in when he hears Dad's truck coming up the drive. It's been several days and for a military man, John's still sketchy about reporting back. Even with phone calls, Dean never breathes right until he hears that sound, until he knows _Dad's home_.

In some ways, it's like being a kid all over again.

He always misses the hunting, but some days are worse than others. The days when he's filled with a panicky restlessness, heart beating too fast, when he'll circle and circle around the cabin, groping for his keys, checking and rechecking the weapons hidey-holes, growling about the shitty TV reception and rotten plumbing and crazy wiring until he either goes out himself or Sam shoves him out the door. 

There are the days where he'll take out all the weapons and array them in neat lines to be sharpened, oiled, and cleaned, just the sight of them enough to coil warm and satisfied in his belly. And then, suddenly, he'll think, _but what's the point?_ and it all spills out of him like a gushing wound. 

Then there are the days like today, rattling around the cabin with nothing much to do and nowhere to go, bored out of his gourd. 

"Where's Sam?"

Dean's thumbnail digs and picks on the label of the beer bottle held laxly in his hand. "Sleeping." He's not sure it's the truth; he can't imagine Sam sleeping through the sound of Dad's engine any more than he would, but there's no sound from the bedroom. 

It's not like he can blame Sam.

Dean looks up through his lashes at his Dad. John looks like miles of bad road, tired and dirty. His knuckles are scraped and so is his face. 

John nods like he was expecting Dean's answer and pushes off the doorjamb. He flops onto the couch next to Dean with a loud sigh and a gunshot crack of his knees. Dean grabs another bottle from the pack at his elbow and hands it to his father. 

"Thanks."

For a while, the only sounds are the murmur of the TV and the hiss of beer sliding down dry throats. 

"How'd it go?" 

John shrugs. "Pretty routine."

Dean's thumb worries at the label some more until the nail slices through it. Then he sighs. "Dad. You can't keep doing this."

John makes a surprised snort. "I know I've got a few years on you, Dean, but I'm not put out to pasture quite yet."

Dean flinches. The words he means to say crumble and die in his throat. 

"Sam's been sleeping a lot lately," John observes before bringing his bottle up to his lips.

Dean shrugs. It's true but he doesn't know what really to say about it. 

John's thumb traces over the bottle's lip. "Your mother was real tired in the beginning." He glances sideways at Dean, then takes another long swallow of his beer, draining it. He puts it on the table with more force than necessary making the bottle tip and then settle. "When she was pregnant."

Dean chokes, spewing beer and foam over his fingers and the floor. "Jesus, Dad…warn a guy."

John's mouth twists a little on one side, not quite a grin. "I'm just saying."

Dean wipes his mouth with two fingers and dries them on his jeans. "Yeah. We'll just…" He waves a hand. Then he sighs. "Dad, we gotta talk."

"Talk?" his father echoes.

"Look… You can't keep doing this."

"Doing what? Hunting?" John makes a face. "I know you and Sam worry, Dean, but this is what we do. What we've always done."

"No, it's not the hunting, Dad. You know if I could I'd be out there with you…"

John holds up a hand. "I know that. But we already talked about this. You need to be here with Sam." He looks away and Dean's throat tightens up. He swallows through it. And then, when that's not enough, he pushes himself up off the couch, away from his father.

"Okay, but I'm talking about Sam, Dad. You can't… He thinks you hate him."

"He does not," John scoffs.

"He does. And I know it's bullshit, Dad, I do. But sometimes…"

"What're you trying to say, Dean?"

Dean shuffles his feet, turning so he can see his father out of the corner of his eyes. "I'm saying Sam's all fucked up already. He just… And he doesn't…" Dean shrugs, shoulders tight and jerky. "He doesn't need you making him feel like a freak."

John's jaw tightens and that warning vein throbs up in his temple. It's amazing how that look can still make his gut boil with acid. "Is that what I'm doing?"

"Dad, you can't even look him in the eye!" Dean gestures with his bottle and nearly drops it. He fumbles with it a moment, beer slopping onto the wood. "You can't look at either of us!" 

"It's not like that."

Dean concentrates on wiping up the beer with the toe of his sock. "It is, Dad. It's exactly like that. And Sam…he's got enough to worry about without thinking his Dad's ashamed of him."

"Well, how do you want me to act, Dean?"

"I don't know! But I can't…" Dean wrestles with his wet sock, tugging it off and tucking it in his back pocket. "You told me to look out for Sam. And you told both of us that this is what we had to do—to keep the family together, keep Sam out of trouble."

"I know that." John sighs out. "I don't… This is hard, Dean." Dean doesn't say anything, tapping his ring against the bottle and after a moment, John grunts.

"You asked—ordered—us to do this," Dean reminds him. 

John shakes his head. "I told you to…" His mouth works for a minute, as if around something sour. "I asked you to impregnate him," he says finally. "Not. Not this."

Heat rises from the soles of Dean's feet up through his body. He knows what his father means. 

There are other days. 

Dean's bed languishes under a growing pile of issues of the World Weekly News and car and entertainment magazines and John's the only reason they haven't moved the bed out entirely. Well. John and a total lack of desire to talk about it, or their arrangements or the sheer amount of sex they're having.

Dean tries to blame it on their situation, on being twenty-something, male and bored to death, on the necessity of getting Sam pregnant as soon as possible but with his father looking—or _not_ looking at him like that—he has to face that it's more than that. 

Doesn't mean he can't be pissed about it, though.

"You did this," he says, voice shaking a little. " _You_ did. What…what did you think would happen?"

His voice is starting to rise and he reins it back, not wanting Sam to hear or interrupt to muddy the issue. 

"I thought you'd do your duty by your brother." It's weird to watch his father squirm, dull brick red burning in the curves of his ears. 

"I am!" Dean insists. "I just… I've loved Sam my whole life, Dad…" John gives him a horrified look and Dean amends quickly, "As a _brother_ , Dad. Jesus. You can't expect me to suddenly act like I don't care just because it grosses you out."

"It _does_ gross me out." John's jaw flexes and he finally turns his head to look at Dean. Dean doesn't expect the expression in his father's eyes. Well. He expects the uneasiness, but the guilt surprises him. "I know I did this to you boys, I know… I know this is what we have to do. But you're my _boys_ , Dean. You can't expect me to be happy about it."

"No, but you could be unhappy a little less loudly," Dean answers. "You think any of us are happy right now?"

"You gonna tell me that you and Sam aren't…different than you were before?"

Dean ducks his head and rubs at the scald of embarrassment that warms the back of his neck. "I don't know how else to do this, Dad. I don't… We don't shove it in your face. I don't know what more you can ask, right now."

John sighs, rubbing his hands over his thighs. 

"I know you don't like it. But Sam needs this. Sam needs us. And it's my job to protect him. Even… Even if it's from you."

"So what are you looking for here?" John glares at him. "You want me to be okay with this? Because I don't know if I can do that."

"Then you need to leave," Dean answers, though it clenches deep in his chest and gut to say it. "Because I've got to worry about Sam right now. And I can't do that right now with you here, like this."

"I don't know." John shakes his head. "I just don't know."

"Figure it out," Dean says flatly. "Because this is how it is. And Sam…Sam comes first, Dad." There's still beer left in his bottle, but there's a sour taste in his mouth that beer isn't going to wash away and he doesn't want it. He puts it down on the table to be worried about later. "I'm going to bed."

John nods. 

Dean gets all the way to the hallway before John calls: "Hey, Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

Dean nods and turns away again.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?" Same tone and pitch and never mind the iron bar across his shoulders. He doesn't turn this time.

"M'sorry, son."

Dean nods. He doesn't know how to answer that. "Yeah. Okay. Good night."

"Good night."


	13. Mystery

"Oh, God, oh, fuck, Dean… _Dean…_ " Sam arches against him, reaching over is shoulder to clutch, his voice trembling and jagged.

Sam doesn't like to come with Dean—anything—inside him. Dean groans and curses under his breath, skating really close to his own orgasm, but he pushes against Sam's hip and pulls out slowly, the deep, heated friction—and the way Sam keeps pushing against him—almost enough to make him come in itself. 

"Oh, fuck, Dean, _fuck_ , Dean…" Sam's eyes are squinched shut tautly, head thrown back into Dean's shoulder as he jacks his cock fast and jerky. Stalled out until Sam reaches his finish, Dean bends to taste the salt wetness of Sam's throat just below his jaw. At the same time, he releases his death grip on Sam's hip to skim down the flat plane of pectoral and abs, enjoying the way it makes Sam moan again, low and desperate, and shiver. Sam's hand speeds up even more and by the time Dean's fingers reach the slick, warm head, it only takes a couple of slow circles around the ridge before Sam chokes, tightens to rigidity and comes in hard, pearly spurts.

Dean turns his face a little to nuzzle in the sweated out heat of Sam's hair, humming and murmuring meaningless words while he strokes Sam through the spasms. His cock rides right against the slickness of Sam's ass and it's hard to be patient, to wait for Sam to come down enough. The plus side is that Sam doesn't seem to mind being fucked after he's come; from the quiet, pleased noises he makes, Sam actually seems to like it plenty, which Dean just doesn't get, but he's more than happy to reap the benefit.

Finally, Sam lets out a noise that he punched Dean for calling it a purr, stretches and rolls onto his stomach. Then he reaches back for Dean, running his knuckles along Dean's thigh. Dean nudges Sam's legs wider, thumbs making circles against the soft insides of Sam's thighs. Sam sighs "Dean," and pushes into the touch.

"Yeah," Dean answers absently, skimming his hands up Sam's side as he moves into position. The space between Sam's shoulder blades is just begging for his mouth, his teeth, and Dean bites down as he eases in. Sam gasps and arches, fingers groping back for Dean again, urging him on. 

It feels so good inside Sam. Being with him is like the best parts of Cassie, except more and longer because he's known Sam pretty much his whole life and Cassie hadn't really known him. Hadn't known him at all. And though Sam is his brother and this is still wrong and his father may end up hating him but this—them—is really good.

Sam makes those same soft, happy grunts, pushing smoothly back on each thrust, taking Dean deep. Dean moves his mouth from between Sam's shoulders to the shoulder itself to the spot he likes best right between Sam's ear and hairline. Sam hisses and tilts his neck into it. "Yeah, Dean. Yeah."

Sam tightens around him, flexes, and Dean pants into Sam's skin, driving faster, harder. When he comes, it's with Sam's name in his mouth and it feels like he shoots for a long, long time. After sex, Sam's smell—scent—is always stronger and Dean lies with his eyes closed, breathing it in until Sam grunts, elbows him and shoves him off.

Dean sighs, pulls out the rest of the way and flops onto his back. Sam rolls over, scratches his hair vigorously and then digs his shoulders into the mattress, getting comfortable. Dean closes his eyes. He's not a cuddler, but Sam's arm brushes against his from shoulder to wrist, solid and warm and he can smell the residue of Sam's shampoo or whatever it is and Dean thinks that it's all just fine.

"This is weird, right?"

Dean groans deeply, opening his eyes and turning his head to look at Sam. "Dude. Can't you pretend to have testicles for five minutes and go to sleep after sex like normal people?"

Sam jabs him with his shoulder. "I'm serious, Dean."

Dean snorts and rolls over, away from Sam, hoping he'll take the hint. "You're seriously fucking up my afterglow, anyway."

Sam grabs Dean's shoulder and tugs him onto his back again. "Dean. Look, I know this is like the plague to you and all, but I want…" He pauses and Dean almost sees the wheels turning in his head. When he speaks again, Sam's voice is quieter, layered with things Dean just can't read. "I need to talk about this." He pushes a little on Dean's shoulder. "Okay?"

"Yeah, all right, man. Okay. What?" Dean digs his heels in and shoves up into a sitting position. Now that he's moving, he's aware of how disgusting he feels, sweated out and sticky and starting to itch. He hopes this isn't going to take long.

Sam sits up too, more slowly, one hand rubbing restlessly over his naked thigh. Even though he's tired and just came, Dean gets absorbed in the motion of Sam's fingers and palm, the taut muscle underneath and so it's a while before he notices that Sam hasn't spoken. "Sam?"

Sam's expression twitches unreadably before he looks at Dean. Dean's kind of weirded out at Sam's eyes, dry and red-rimmed. "I don't know," Sam says hoarsely and shakes his head. "I just think maybe this is too easy."

"Easy?" Dean echoes, disbelieving. "Which part of this, exactly, has been easy, Sam?"

Sam grimaces, dimple scrawling across his cheek. "No. I know. But." He shakes his head again. "You remember when I was fifteen?"

Dean blinks and wrinkles his eyebrows at the sudden left turn into 'Huh?' "Uh, yeah, I guess?"

"When I was having all those dreams," Sam prompts, looking miserable. He's staring at his knee, twisting some of the hairs back and forth between his fingers. 

Dean prods and shakes his memory but nothing jars loose. "You were always dreaming about something, Sam. What're we talking ab…"

"No, Dean." Sam cuts him off, harsh, cutting. His face, his chest, are both flushed deep red. "I mean when I used to dream about _you_."

"Oh," Dean says blankly, when it seems like some kind of response is in order. Then, finally, memory kicks something out, a vague and fuzzy recollection. "Oh, Jesus, dude. You were _fifteen_. That's just what you _do_. You just…you dream about everybody. Hell, I had this dream once with Sister Martha—you remember Sister Martha?—and I was…"

"Okay, yeah, that's what you said and that's what I thought," Sam interrupts again, "but…Dean. I mean, look at us."

Dean widens his eyes questioningly and looks down at himself, seeing the same hot, fit dude he always sees. "Yeah?"

Sam sighs. "I feel like…I like this too much. Having sex with you. Sleeping with you. It's still weird…but I feel like it's not weird enough. We're _brothers_ , man. I shouldn't… I shouldn't be laying here feeling all satisfied 'cause I got laid with my brother."

"Satisfied?" Dean repeats, brightening. "Yeah?"

Sam rolls his eyes before scraping a hand over his face. "Dean. C'mon, man, don't."

Dean sighs and tries to look more serious. "So let me get this straight. You're feeling bad—guilty—because you just got righteously laid and you liked it?"

"Well. Sorta." Sam squirms. "Not like you're making it sound."

"Look. Sam." Dean curls his fingers around Sam's bicep, tugging his brother toward him. Sam comes easier than he was expecting and Dean takes a second to tilt his face into the angle of Sam's neck, lipping lightly over the skin and feeling Sam shiver. "We're both just making the best of a bad situation is all. I mean…if I have to be having sex with someone, I sure as hell don't want it to be bad sex, do you?" Dean strokes down Sam's obliques, comparing the smooth, hairless skin with the rougher texture of Sam's legs. Sam holds himself tensely as he settles against Dean's side but he hears Sam's breath change with the pleasure of being touched. "We've known each other our whole lives and we're good at what we do. Don't try to make it more than it is."

"So…" Sam's voice wavers a little when Dean's fingers slope down to the crease of his hip, "when I'm pregnant, this is all over, then? We're finished, we're done?"

"Well. Yeah." That's so far in the future Dean doesn't even want to think about it. Boredom and Winchester determination means that he's read the info packets they provided them both with several times over; even if breeders like Sam are _capable_ of reproducing, their fertility rate is still pretty fucking low. It could take pretty much the whole year for Sam to conceive even if they go at it at the rate they have been pretty much every day. Dean doesn't even contemplate the possibility of failure. "That's the idea, right?"

"Yeah." Sam's voice sounds dull and Dean moves his hand down again, sliding the heel of his palm to skim across Sam's cock and curving his fingers under Sam's balls to caress the delicate skin there. Sam hisses and arches, skull digging into Dean's shoulder. "Dean," Sam breathes, voice lower and more interested than it was a second before. 

"Yeah?" Dean turns his face into Sam's neck, nuzzling skin and the thick spider web of Sam's hair. He can smell faint traces of himself over Sam and something about that makes him damn near want to purr himself. 

Sam turns his head, lips fumbling across Dean's jaw and chin until their mouths meet. It's clumsy first before it smoothes and turns urgent, hungry. _Sam had a good idea with this whole kissing thing,_ Dean thinks dimly, their tongues clashing briefly before he retreats to let Sam in. Sam has this way of flicking the tip of his tongue across the roof of Dean's mouth that turns his crank like no one Dean's ever been with.

"My next checkout is in two days," Sam reminds him when their lips come apart enough from them to breathe and speak.

"I know." Dean licks Sam's bottom lip and then bites, worrying it to plumpness. 

"Maybe it'll be then. Maybe they'll tell me I'm pregnant."

Dean pulls back some and blinks. "Do you feel pregnant?"

Sam shrugs. His smile is only a little embarrassed. "How would I know what 'pregnant' feels like?"

"Good point." Sam shifts so his arm crosses Dean's lap, fingers curling ticklish and distracting against Dean's hip. "I just don't think we should get ahead of ourselves here."

"No, of course not." Sam settles his other hand over Dean's, curving it more firmly around his cock as he pushes back more snugly against Dean. "Not 'til we're sure."

Dean hides his smile in that sweet spot on Sam's neck he's claimed as his. "Yeah. We should totally be sure."


	14. Mourning

"Thank you for doing this." Sam's mouth feels dry as the saltpan desert, but he unsticks it enough to say the words. He keeps his eyes straight ahead, though, eyeballing the distance between them and the gate checkpoint through the windshield. "I think Paul might hire Dean down at the garage on a more permanent basis pretty soon if Dean keeps on like he has been. I didn't want him to miss out today."

"I thought you boys were all right for money?" John reaches over and shuts off the radio, cutting off Stevie Nicks mid-wail. 

"Oh, we are," Sam says quickly. "My breeder's stipend covers pretty much everything." Sam grimaces, his jaw and throat feeling too tight. "But Dean likes the work and he needs to get out of the cabin sometimes."

"Hmmm." John's fingers tap on the wheel in an exact copy of Dean's preoccupied drumming. Or, really, Dean copies John, but it amounts to essentially the same thing. "I don't think I much like the idea of Dean being gone for hours at a time while you're by yourself at the cabin."

Sam's thighs tighten until his knees ache but he keeps himself from balling his fists up. He doesn't want to get into a fight with his father, especially with the long ride home still ahead of them. Still, he can't help saying, "Well, it's not up to you, Dad." Then, before John can do more than bristle, he adds, "Sometimes _I_ want Dean out of the house, too."

John snorts and lets out a chuckle under his breath. The moment deflates and Sam takes a deep breath as they inch closer to the gate. A part of him is chafing at the delay, but at the same time, he understands and appreciates the caution after the Center in Ft. Lauderdale got bombed by Revisionists. His one run-in with Bible zealots was plenty. "All right, you got me there," John admits. 

"Anyway, thank you." Sam lifts the seatbelt, shifts to a marginally more comfortable position and resettles it. His back's been aching since yesterday. He doesn't care what Dean says or does, they're never fucking on the kitchen table again. 

_Of course, depending on how today goes, maybe we're never fucking again._

The thought spools out into the infinite space of his mind, dangling for endless seconds before he gathers it back up hastily and locks it away in some box. There's too much there, too many thoughts and ideas and feelings for him to deal with, especially here on the doorstep of the men that did this to him, that made this a necessity.

"You don't have to thank me, Sam." John sounds stifled and Sam can't tell if it's annoyance or not. When Sam finally looks over, his father's looking at the steering column and toying with his keychain. "I was actually hoping we—"

"Dad." Sam nods towards the guard standing patiently outside John's window and hands his father his id. 

"Oh." John seems weirdly startled as he takes the id with one hand and rolls down the window with the other. "How you doin'?" he asks the guard in what Sam calls his 'country bumpkin' voice, laying on the Midwest slurry drawl nice and thick.

Sam leans across the seat so his voice will carry to the open window. "Samuel Winchester. Breeder. Ident 4196673123. I have a medical checkout with Dr. Azarian at eleven-fifteen."

The guard doesn't answer either of them, only nods and compares Sam's id card against the list of expected visitors. When he's satisfied, he nods and hands the card back. John takes the card and hands it off to Sam as they're waved forward another few feet to where the guards with mirrors and dogs will inspect the car for explosives. 

"Well, they're a barrel of monkeys." His Dad's tone is dry as he eyeballs guards and dogs alike with another very Dean-like expression of suspicious protectiveness for his precious truck. 

Sam shrugs, feeling oddly defensive. "None of us are here to socialize, Dad."

"Well, now, I _know_ that, Sam, I just…" John visibly bites off the rest of his sentence before blowing out his breath. "All right. You have to hate this a lot more than I do. I'll keep my yap shut."

Sam takes a breath of his own. "Yeah. Thanks, Dad." 

"Here comes another one." John nods out the window. 

A tap on Sam's window. This is new, unexpected. The lead knot in Sam's stomach gets heavier as he winds the window down. 

"Would you step out of the vehicle, sir?"

John leans toward them. "Is there a problem?"

Sam remembers it was like this on the rare occasions that they were pulled over by Highway Patrol or the couple of times Child Services came sniffing around; his heart rate triples and sweat springs up between his shoulder blades, in his 'pits, in the small of his back. It feels like **GUILTY** is written across his forehead in blazing invisible neon and never mind that he doesn't know what he thinks he's guilty of. 

_It's not like there's a lack of things from which to choose_.

"I need the breeder to step out of the vehicle," the guard answers in the same dull, rote tone. "Please."

Sam glances fast at his father then unclips the seatbelt. He keeps his gestures slow and unhurried, conscious of the holstered gun at the guard's waist—at all the guards' waists—and the riflemen in the guard shacks and on the watchtowers rearing tall and blocky above razor-wired walls. "It's okay," he tells his father—though he's only hoping that's true. John's jaw is set and his eyes are dangerous. Sam feels a surge of warmth flood him, seeing it, but at the same time, he doesn't want trouble. He's doing all this to get them _out_ of trouble, not dig them deeper.

He steps out of the truck and onto the asphalt, the not-quite midday heat like a fist after the air-conditioned coolness of the truck. " _Is_ there a problem?" Sam asks, echoing John. In his hand, the guard—his nametag says A. Wesker—has a long wand like something between a portable metal detector and an internal ultrasound probe. A cable runs from the wand to a device strapped to Wesker's back; another cable follows the shoulder strap to some kind of handheld reader. 

"No problem," Wesker says. His eyes are hidden behind sunglasses dark and opaque as oil slicks. Given the hammer heavy sunlight, Sam understands why, but he'd feel a damn sight better if he could see the soldier's eyes. "New protocol. Please hold still and answer the following questions."

"Yeah, sure," Sam mutters, mostly for his own benefit, since he's sure Wesker doesn't give a shit one way or the other. He holds his hands slightly up and wide as Wesker approaches him with the device.

"Are you well?" Wesker recites mechanically. "Is the person in the vehicle your assigned Custodian or another trusted family member? Have you been threatened, coerced or otherwise been offered harm by that person or by other persons either known or unknown?"

"Threatened…? What? No." Sam holds completely still as Wesker sweeps him with the wand, never actually making contact with Sam's skin. "I'm fine. That's my Dad in the truck. My…my Custodian couldn't make it." The handheld clicks and hums, reminding Sam of a Geiger counter. Or like every Geiger counter he's ever seen on TV, since he's never actually used one. If it is a Geiger counter, then Sam's lit up like Hiroshima from the enthusiastic rattling of the machine. Wesker's eyebrows make a fast appearance over the rims of his sunglasses and he drops the reader to fumble a face mask from his belt.

Sam starts to take a step backwards and thinks better of it, conscious of all the eyes—and potentially, weapons—trained on him. 

"Sir." Wesker is slightly muffled by the mask he holds over his mouth and nose. "I need you to get back in the vehicle and drive immediately to the gate where you will receive new instructions."

"Wait," Sam protests, as Wesker turns away to hand signal the guards at the gate. "I don't…"

 _"Sir."_ Wesker takes a deliberate and emphatic step away from Sam. Even though his voice is still slightly indistinct, Sam can read the fear in his tone loud and clear. "I have asked you to get back in your vehicle and drive up to the gate. I will not ask you again. _Get in the truck._ "

Sam almost trips over his own feet stepping back from Wesker. He fumbles open the truck's door and climbs inside. Wesker waves them on; the truck lurches into motion as soon as Sam's inside and he has to grab for the door to wrestle it shut.

"What was that about?" For once, Sam knows the edge in his father's voice isn't for him. He's still a little too shell shocked to count it as a victory, though.

"I don't know." Sam hates how breathless he sounds, hates the little shake in his fingers from too much adrenaline dumped too fast into his bloodstream. 

At the gate, John starts to roll his window down, but the guard—B. Vickers—stops him with a flat gesture before pointing at building different than the one Sam usually goes to. John nods and they drive over as directed. "How you feeling, Sammy?" John's tapping the wheel again, short, agitated beats of his thumb. "Think we need to get out of here?"

Sam tenses in his seat, ignoring a very real desire to say yes. "What makes you think we could?" He works his tongue against the sourness of his mouth before he shakes his head. "Naw, keep going. It's just a doctor's appointment, right?"

"Right."

The guards at the new building are wearing face masks as well, more sophisticated than the ones Wesker pulled from his belt. "Samuel Winchester?" the nearer guard—C. Redfield—asks as Sam and John slide uneasily from the truck's cab.

"Yeah." 

Sam doesn’t know what he expects ( _shot on sight taken prisoner chained beaten dissected autopsied_ ) but whatever it is, it's not for the Redfield to simply nod and wave him on into the building. 

"Sir." Sam turns and sees Redfield put out a hand to halt John. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to wait in the vehicle."

"What? Why?"

"Part of the security protocol. It's for the breeder's safety, sir. Please wait in your truck."

"His name is Sam," John replies sharply. His Dad's eyes meet his and in them he sees John's willingness to make trouble right here and now, on Sam's say-so. It's a nice thought, but Sam's not looking to get either of them killed so he shakes his head. John takes a step backwards, away from Redfield. "And fine."

Sam rolls his shoulders and turns back to the facility. The receptionist is wearing a face mask too, as are all the guards. Sam tries not to feel like a biohazard as he's directed to one of the examining rooms and handed a paper robe. 

He undresses, taking off everything but his socks. The robe is too short and rips a little over his shoulders, as usual. Sam hunches a little forward but it's a lose-lose proposition. Lean forward enough to protect his crotch and more of his backside's completely exposed to the chill, but the robe never really close enough for him to feel secure in any case.

It's bad enough with Azarian through the humiliating ordeal of his exam, but it's so many levels of worse for his other appointment of the day…

The exam room door opens and, as expected, the man who steps through is also masked. Not that Sam doesn't recognize him perfectly well in any case. Sam's hands grip the exam table in between his spread thighs, a protective gesture he can't help making. At the same time, his nod is curt and his tone level when he says, "Agent Henricksen."

Henricksen nods back. "Hello, Sam. How's Dean?"


	15. Mark

Sam sighs. "I think you get far too much enjoyment out of this."

Henricksen spreads his hands. "If you don’t love your job, what've you got, really? Am I right?" There's a rolling stool that the doctors use; Henricksen reaches out and drags it over to seat himself. "And as the Agent who brought the wily, _dangerous_ Winchester boys—oh, I'm sorry _men_ \--to heel, I am very happy in my job."

"As I remember it, we surrendered and turned ourselves in." Sam wants to shift but between the short robe and the way the exam table paper sticks, he doesn't quite dare. 

Henricksen waves. "Semantics."

Sam sighs again, louder this time. "Look, why are we still doing this? I'm following the guidelines of our deal. I produce the next generation of red-blooded Americans and in return, you—and your bosses—lay off me and mine. Is there some reason we have to keep meeting like this? Or are you just really hoping for a good look at the bait and tackle?" Sam grins wolfishly. "Because if it means I'd never have to see your mug again, I'd gladly flash the goods."

"You're funny." Henricksen cuts his eyes. "Between you and Dean you'd have quite the comedy team going in prison."

Sam's mouth pulls tight. "What do you want?"

"I'm just being friendly!" Henricksen rolls the stool back and forth. Sam wonders if he'd find these interviews half as annoying if he didn't suspect that Henricksen only meets with him to gloat over the Winchester's 'defeat'. "Isn't that we are now, Sam? Friends?"

"So, ' _friend_ ', you wanna tell me what's the deal with the face gear?" Sam doesn't really expect Henricksen to tell him anything, but he's tired of playing the same verbal games. Bottom line, he's just tired. 

But more than that, he doesn't want Henricksen asking too much about Dean. It's a thin subterfuge that separates Sam's Custodian 'Derek Malkavian' from Sam's brother Dean Winchester, but it'll hold long enough for Sam to get pregnant as long as Henricksen doesn't get it into his head to actually come out and investigate. And so Sam plays nice and his family stays out of prison. 

_It's a good plan,_ Sam reminds himself, the same way he does every interview. _It'll work. It has to._

"Oh this?" Henricksen points to his mask. "This is for my protection. Seems you're just as irresistible as your brother always thought _he_ was."

Sam snorts and rolls his eyes. "What does that even mean?"

"It means there's been…incidents involving other breeders." Henricksen's humor slips away like a shed garment, leaving only the serious, fanatical agent Sam's more familiar—and comfortable—with. He doesn't like Henricksen and he doubts he ever will, but his one virtue is that you always know where you stand with him. "We've lost some people."

"People?" Sam questions. 

Henricksen shrugs. He's shown nothing but contempt for Sam's status as a breeder, nothing but contempt for the idea of men with uteruses conceiving and carrying children period, but in the heat of his eyes, Sam sees that Henricksen's angry. More than angry: furious. "You name it: soldiers, civilians, breeders."

"Are my Dad and Dean in danger?" Sam asks sharply, going cold so fast he can feel goose bumps prickle from his ankles to his chest. "Am I dangerous to them?"

Another shrug, more careless than the first and Sam has to remind himself that assaulting an FBI agent—especially _this_ agent—could be considered grounds for voiding his deal with the Feds. "If nothing's happened yet, it's not likely to. The docs still don't have a grasp on it."

"But…what is it?"

"You'd need to ask Azarian for the details and the jargon. Bottom line? Pheromones."

"Phreomones?" Sam repeats. He should be thinking something. He should have _a_ thought. But there's nothing. 

"Yeah. You know. Pheromones. It's like a smell that makes animals more attracted to other animals…"

"I know what pheromones _are_ ," Sam interrupts with a roll of his eyes. "I just… I don't get what that has to do with me. Or with people dying. Are you…are you seriously telling me I'm giving off pheromones?"

_…so good, gonna fuck you so good, stick my dick in that tight little ass and come…know you want it, smell it on you, sweet, so sweet, could see you wanting me from all the way 'cross the bar, gonna give it to you, give you what you want, so sweet, so slow…_

The voice of the man who'd almost raped him comes back to Sam as vividly as one of his visions; he can't breathe around the panicked lump in his chest or the triphammering of his heart, the sense memory of a body pressed too close against his back and the grate of brick. 

It passes a second later and he's gotten better at disguising his expressions with his visions; hiding his momentary panic attack isn't that hard though he's left with the residue of it, a feeling that makes him want to shower long and roughly, scraping it off his skin. 

"I'm not telling you anything," Henricksen answers calmly. "Believe it or not. But we will continue to take precautions and that means your leash is probably going to get abruptly shortened."

"Look, I hardly leave the house as it is." Sam doesn't even want to think about what Henricksen means by 'shortening his leash'. His historical recollection of the Japanese internment camps is short on concrete detail and heavy on the ghostly, but it's enough to remember they existed. That something like them could easily exist again. He's already heard rumors about what happens to military personnel that turn out to be breeders. 

"So you haven't been threatened or subjected to any kind of physical assault?"

"What? No!" 

"Have you received any kind of threats through the mail or by telephone?"

"No." This feels more routine even though it really isn't. Henricksen questions him for a few more minutes before there's a tap on the door and Dr. Azarian pokes his head through.

"Agent Henricksen, are you done with my patient?" Azarian's wearing a mask as well, but it doesn't do much to hide the annoyance in his tone. 

Henricksen eyeballs Sam over the top of his mask, but a moment later, he nods, grudgingly. "Yeah, we're done here."

Sam kicks his heels idly while Azarian and Henricksen shuffle through the coming-in, going-out awkwardness. Now that he's thinking about it, he remembers Dean's voice too, rough and whispering, _"…so good, you smell so good…"_ as he nuzzles Sam's skin. The memory is a lot more pleasant than the first one; so much that Sam shifts uncomfortably on the paper, warmed through. 

"So. How've you been doing, Sam?" Azarian settles on the stool Henricksen just vacated, clipboard across his knees. 

"Tell me about the pheromones," Sam answers, not much in the mood for small talk.

Azarian sighs heavily. "I really do not like your Agent Henricksen much."

"He's not mine."

Azarian opens a drawer and pulls out the rubber tourniquet, needle and the various colored vials he uses to collect Sam's blood. "Recently we've discovered that many—most—breeding males are continually giving off low levels of pheromones." Azarian takes Sam's unresisting arm and binds the tourniquet just above his elbow. "Barely noticeable. But. Pheromone output can apparently increase exponentially, depending on a few factors."

"And those factors are?" Sam doesn't grimace as Azarian jabs the needle home though he wants to. It's not the pain so much as it's being the government's pincushion. A moment later, Azarian whisks the tourniquet away and Sam has to fight not to flex his arm.

Azarian makes a rolling gesture with one shoulder, eyes on the vial filling with Sam's blood. "Arousal. Sexual activity. And…what we call mating behavior."

"'Mating behavior'?"

"Your pheromone levels, for example, are quite high." Azarian swaps out one vial for the next, shaking the one he just removed before putting it on the tray. 

"And that's a problem?" 

"Well, it can be. We think the pheromones are a kind of…protective gesture. To make you more attractive to potential mates but also to encourage a kind of…territorial behavior. So that you—and your child—will be taken care of."

Sam remembers the men at the bar again, less vividly, fortunately. "Yeah…I don't think that part's functioning so well."

Azarian moves his shoulder again, less a shrug than an acknowledgment. "As you say. There's been... Some violence. And some deaths. We're working on a way to suppress the pheromone output, but it's a delicate business and there's still a lot we don't understand. We believe that too much suppression of the natural pheromone will affect your fertility levels."

Sam blinks. "How so?"

Azarian smiles, readable in the way the lines around his eyes tighten. "Well, there _is_ a reason we assign you to a Custodian rather than just inseminating you, Sam." He pats Sam's knee. "Sit tight while I hand these off to the lab. Be right back."

Azarian isn't gone long enough for Sam to think much and after that are the parts of the exam where Sam doesn't like to think much at all.

"So you and your Custodian are finally having intercourse?" Azarian touches Sam delicately with one gloved fingertip and Sam drops his face into the cradle of his crossed arms. He doesn't like to think about the fact that the most action his ass has had is his doctor and his brother. That's a new level of twisted, even for them. 

"Yeah."

"That's good. Very good. So…things are easier between you?"

"I guess so. I mean… _hey now_!" Sam jerks.

"Sorry," Azarian says briefly, not sounding sorry at all as he removes his finger. 

"Yeah." Sam glares over his shoulder. "A little warning—and lube—would be nice."

Azarian nods briefly in acknowledgment. "But you are getting along better?" he asks again. "Because it looks like…you've been quite vigorous in your lovemaking."

Sam's skin feels like it could catch fire as he hides his face in his arms again. "Yeah, it's fine."

"So your Custodian hasn't subjected you to…any unwanted advances, correct?"

_"Let's have sex, Dean._

_"Oh, God, oh, fuck, Dean…_ Dean…" 

"No," Sam says, stifled. "It's all…it's all been wanted."

"Excellent. And his behavior towards you? Has it changed at all?"

_"Don't try to make it more than it is."_

"Nah, not really. Which…with the whole pheromone thing...shouldn't he be? Different?" Sam raises his head to look over his shoulder again.

 _'Course, Dean's always been pretty territorial,_ Sam thinks, a second behind his own question. 

Azarian shrugs. "We still do not understand it all. More so than our usual scientific ignorance. We _think_ that we know the purpose and overall effect of the pheromones because we've seen it in the animal kingdom, but is it really the same? Who knows. And we have no explanation for why some are more affected than others, and very few are affected not at all."

"But my Dad, my brother…I don't have to worry about them, right?"

_"…good, you smell good, so fucking good…"_

"It certainly seems to be much weaker among close relations." Azarian leaves Sam spread out like that to write some notations in Sam's chart. "Though I don't think it can be ruled out completely. Some of my colleagues have reported cases of incest and it's unclear whether it was pheromone fueled or simply a 'normal'," Azarian makes quotes with his fingers, "incestuous attraction." He considers a moment before putting the pen down. "Why? Your brother, your father…they haven't shown any evidence of being attracted to you, have they? Because if they have, you might need to be isolated with your Custodian for your own safety."

"No," Sam says hastily. "Nothing like that. But that's just it. You tell me I'm giving off these pheromones at this crazy rate, so bad everyone around me's practically in Hazmat gear and yet there's my Dad and Dean and…nothing." Sam shrugs. "I just want it to make sense."

"Ah." Azarian pats Sam's ankle in what Sam thinks is supposed to be reassurance. "You can get up now." As Sam turns over, sticky with the lubricant Azarian _did_ use, Azarian reseats himself on the stool. "Look, Sam, I wish I could give you better answers but I just don't have them. The bottom line is that you need to be careful, very careful. And very aware. Even with our population situation as dire as it is, people are very uneasy with the idea of breeders. They're angry about the changes. It goes against the so-called natural order."

"I am careful." Sam looks down at his hands. "We're careful. All of us."

This time Azarian pats Sam's knee and it does feel reassuring. "Good. That's good. Now. If you wait here, I'll see if we have the results of your labs."


	16. Midnight

It's later than he expects when Dean finally pulls into his spot on the drive. He'd meant to beat Sam and Dad back from the Center, but the guys from the garage had invited him out for a beer and it's been long enough since he's been able to do it that Dean let himself go along with it. One beer turned into a couple and then Dale had bet him that there was no way he could remember all the lyrics to _Peace Sells…But Who's Buying?_ , which had led to more beers…

Anyway, Dad's truck is already pulled into its spot and, when he touches the hood, it's long cold. Which he pretty much expected. He wonders if Sam's going to be pissed. And then he revises his thought to wonder _how_ pissed Sam's going to be.

His first instinct is to come in like always, banging the door and calling out Sam's name at the top of his lungs but at the last moment, self-preservation kicks in and goes in quiet instead, kicking his boots off and to one side. 

The light's on in the kitchen; Sam's left a note: **DINNER IN THE FRIDGE**. Dean's not real hungry, but he sneaks a peek anyway. Sloppy Joes, Sam's specialty. Dean wonders if that's a good sign or bad. 

Sam's lying on the bed, still in his clothes. Still in his _shoes_. Dean's stomach goes tight and sour so fast he wonders if he's going to upchuck his beer. "Hey." It feels almost like second nature to climb onto the bed next to Sam and lie so their shoulders touch. He's not sure how good that is, either. 

"Hey," Sam answers, inflectionless.

"How'd it go?"

Sam shrugs, as listless as his voice. The silence spins out again and Dean wonders how far he should let it go before Sam turns his head. "Do I smell different to you?"

"What, you mean like do you need to take a shower or something?" Dean sits up far enough that he can lift Sam's arm and sniff exaggeratedly underneath.

Sam snorts and jerks his arm away. "You're such an ass. I'm being serious."

Dean makes a face. "In case you hadn't noticed? I'm a guy. I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about what you smell like."

Dean watches color swim up beneath Sam's skin. His tan is fading with the amount of time Sam spends indoors and his blush shows more easily. Dean needs to get him out more. "You just… When we… You keep saying how good I smell."

Once Sam mentions it, Dean remembers, a heat that's only half-embarrassment spilling through his skin. "Yeah? So? You should know you can't take seriously anything a guy says when he's having sex. So I like your shampoo or something."

"My shampoo?" Sam repeats, disbelieving, and laughs.

"Yeah, I don't know. It's kind of fruity." They've gotten easier with each other, but it still feels weird to reach out and slide his fingertips over Sam's belly where his shirt's ridden up. The skin's really soft there and dots in goose flesh where Dean touches him. "Like you."

Sam huffs and shoves Dean's shoulder but he doesn't push him away. Dean rubs all the way across Sam's belly and then retreats to just trace circles around his navel. Sam sighs and his eyes drop closed, lines of tension smoothing out of his face. "Hey," Dean calls. Sam's eyes slit, only a glister through his lashes. "You wanna?"

Sam's lips curve up in a smile Dean's become all too familiar with and Dean feels the pleasure of it warm him even more, curling low in his belly, his groin. Then Sam's eyes open all the way. He opens his mouth like he's going to say something, but the words just hang. Dean keeps making those same, slow circles on Sam's stomach, pushing his shirt up ahead of him.

"I'm pregnant," Sam says suddenly, all in a rush so that it takes Dean a minute to sort out what he said. 

He blinks. "Okay," he says finally. He dips his fingertips under Sam's waistband. "You wanna?"

Sam laughs again, jaggedly. "Okay?" He reaches and fists his hand in Dean's sleeve. "That's all you have to say? _Okay?_ "

"Well…yeah." Dean frowns, trying to figure out what else Sam wants him to say. "I mean…that's good, right?"

"I…" Sam shakes his head. "Yeah. Sure. It's great, Dean."

Sam sounds less than convinced, but Dean doesn't have a lot of time to think about it when Sam brushes Dean's hand away and rolls over on top of him, knocking the breath out of him. Dean oofs and then Sam's mouth is coming down on his, all hard, thrusting tongue and hungry, punishing lips. Dean slides his hand under Sam's tee again, curving around the firm contour of his waist and then up the sleek line of Sam's back, pulling him down harder.

Sam's hands are all over him. Cupping his face, scratching across his neck, shoving his shirt up and raking across his ribs. "Sam…" Dean turns his face away, ignoring the way Sam growls and tries to recapture his lips. "Sam…"

"What?" The look Sam gives him is wild, strange.

Dean licks his lips even though they're plenty wet. "Do you wanna…" He swallows. "You wanna fuck me?"

Sam's mouth opens and he blinks twice. Then, "Yeah. Fuck. _Yes._ "

They struggle out of their clothes and Sam fishes the lube out of the drawer. "I've never done this," Dean reminds him, a little nervousness mixed in with the want. Dean likes to think of himself as ready for pretty much anything, but he remembers how awkward it was with Sam at first, how painful. 

"I know." Sam kisses him again. It's different this time, less desperate, hungrier, thrilling through Dean like electricity. "I'll be good, Dean. I'll be so good…"

Dean gasps as Sam's teeth fasten on his neck before he starts to suck, hard and bruising. The pleasure-pain almost is enough to distract him from the touch of Sam's finger stroking lube across his hole and then venturing inside.

"Shhh, shhhh…" Sam murmurs. But it's not until Sam's mouth comes down on his again that Dean realizes the whimpering noises he's hearing are coming from him. Sam's finger slides deeper. It's thick, so thick, and Dean wonders how he's ever going to handle Sam's cock. 

Sam's mouth hovers over his, not so much kissing as containing the sounds coming out of Dean's throat as he fucks into Dean deeper still until he traces across that same spot that always makes Sam buck and moan when Dean thrusts against it. Dean understands why a lot better now; just the lightest rub across goes straight to his dick.

"Yeah," Sam urges, "yeah, Dean, yeah."

It feels like it goes on a long time, Sam adding fingers, stretching him. It pulses through him, deep waves that make him shake and clutch and beg, "Sammy…Sammy…"

"Yeah, okay." Sam licks a wet, warm stripe up Dean's neck, across his mouth, ignoring the way Dean's lips open for him. "Fuck. _Dean._ "

Sam's cock is much bigger, much less flexible than the sum total of his fingers. It hurts, _burns_ , but even so, Dean's still into it, still rocking with and into Sam as Sam works deeper inside him.

"Harder." Dean's voice croaks like he's been screaming for hours, his throat's so dry. "I can…I can take it harder."

Sam groans into his skin but his hips piston faster, harder. His breath comes faster and Dean feels the tension build in him, hears the change in his grunts that means Sam's close to coming. Dean slips a hand between them to take his own cock in hand, stroking rough and fast. He's so close already, he know it won't take much.

He digs his other hand into Sam's hair, forcing his brother's face up. Sam's eyes open and the wildness is gone, but the strangeness isn't. "You're _pregnant_ ," Dean murmurs, the realization bursting over him again. 

At the reminder, Sam gasps and his head falls back, body going rigid. Dean can't feel Sam come, but he's conscious of the heat spreading inside him as Sam grinds deep. Dean untangles his fingers from Sam's hair to clutch the blanket instead as he jerks himself hard and fast to his own orgasm. He comes about the same time Sam collapses onto him, crushing his arm to his body as he spurts and jerks, making a mess of them both.

For a while, Dean can only breathe—or try to, because Sam is heavy, even when he's not limp and fucked out—feeling open and weird and tired and good. Finally, Sam sighs and rolls off to the side, making Dean feel about ten times lighter. One of their tee-shirts is still on the bed; Dean snags it and wipes his arm and belly before tossing it off the side to be dealt with tomorrow. 

"I'm pregnant," Sam murmurs and Dean turns his head to look at his brother. Sam's looking down at his body, sweat slick and stained, one hand splayed over his stomach.

"Yeah, you are." It feels weird to say it, weirder to think about it—a person, growing inside a body, a man's body, his brother's body. Stranger still to think that it's also _his_ baby in there. "This is a good thing, right?"

Sam's mouth twists but he nods. "Yeah. I guess. But…Dean." He looks up. "I'm pregnant and we just had sex anyway."

Dean sighs. It's not that he hadn't realized it while it was happening, but it was a thought he was happily going to leave in the background of his mind until…oh, half past never. Trust Sam to be the one to drag it up anyway. "It doesn't have to mean any more than we make of it."

Another quirk of Sam's lips, indecipherable as any particular emotion. "What if I want it to mean something?"

Dean inhales, all the sex endorphins and feelings of contented sleepiness spilling away. In spite of what just happened, he hadn't really expected this one. "I… I don't know."

Sam nods, unsurprised, and it bothers Dean just a bit to think that Sam expected this from him all along.

"Well…it's just…we said…"

"Maybe you should sleep in the other bed tonight." Dean stares at Sam, disbelieving. "Just…just for tonight, or something," Sam hedges and it's even weirder to see _Sam_ be indecisive. "A lot's happened today. I'm tired."

Dean looks over his shoulder. The other bed is still covered in crap and is probably musty with disuse. But it's more than that. Dean looks back. "Do you want me to?"

Sam shrugs.

"Because…I don't want to. I just… I don't know, Sam, okay? I just…I don't know. Is that okay? Can I not know for a while?"

Still not looking at him, Sam nods. "Yeah. Sure."

"Sam—"

Sam lurches up and reaches over Dean to turn the lamp switch. "It's fine, Dean. Whatever. I just want to sleep now. Okay?"

"Yeah. Okay," Dean agrees hesitantly. Sam rolls so his back is to Dean. Normally, Dean would take that as an invitation to curl around him, but tonight, he's not so sure. Apparently, he's not so sure about anything, except that the night they've been waiting for is finally here. 

Sam's pregnant. And that means, Sam is _safe._

_You love your little brother? You'd do…anything for him?_

_Yeah. I would._

If nothing else, Dean takes satisfaction in knowing those words are still true, even now.


	17. Maybe

"So. What are we talking about exactly?" Dean asks, unexpectedly and long after Sam thought the subject was dropped. Typically, he chooses to do it through a mouthful of cereal and Sam has to both duck crumbs and try to decipher the words between them. "Sex? The baby? 'Cause you know I'm all in for that…" Another pause for two huge spoonfuls of cereals, making Dean's cheeks bulge and milk dribbling down his chin. Sam's stopped being surprised by Dean's table manners—or lack thereof—but it can and does surprise him how his reaction to it has changed, less disgust and embarrassment as a resigned and exasperated fondness. 

"Yeah, Dean. I know." It's weird to consider how much he _does_ know, the relief he feels at knowing unquestioningly that Dean _will be here_ no matter what, that Dean has his back the way he always has, even with this.

"So. What? You want to be boyfriends?" 

Jesus. Boyfriends. Sam sets down his own cereal bowl with a clatter, the spoon rattling around the rim. Things—feelings—that seemed so much clearer last night feel strange and muddy in the light of day, especially with Dean trying to put words around them. "No!" His voice comes out squeaky and high-pitched and as Dean raises his eyebrows, Sam clears his throat, striving for a more manly pitch. "I don't… Not _boyfriends_ , Christ."

"Well, I draw the line at 'lovers', because that's just too fucking gay, even for you."

Sam's eyes narrow. "What d'you mean, 'even for me'?"

Dean shrugs and then grins through a mouthful of mashed up bran flakes. "It's okay that you're completely in love with me. I mean…I _am_ pretty damn awesome…"

Sam snorts through his nose and shoves Dean's shoulder, grinning himself. "I am not in love with you."

"It's okay, Sam." Dean leans forward and pats Sam's knee. "I understand that you've just been overwhelmed by my towering masculinity. It happens." He tilts his head pityingly at Sam while his eyes sparkle. "It's not your fault."

Sam shakes his head. "I hate you so much," he growls, right before he tackles Dean out of the chair.

"Aw, Sammy…" Dean's laughing as they roll into the sideboard. "Where's the _love_?"

It's not even a real fight. Both of them are laughing too hard, having too much fun to get in more than the occasional jab of knee or elbow. 

"Good morning, boys."

It's not a large kitchen. At the sound of their Dad's voice, dry, rolling and amused, Sam jerks and kicks one of the legs of the table, making the dishes clank and Dean's box of Raisin Bran tips and cascades over both of them. Dean swears and starts wriggling out from underneath and Sam does his best to go in the other direction, hitting his head pretty hard on the underside of the table as he does so. "Ow!"

"I see I missed breakfast." 

Dean scrambles up on his own but Sam takes the hand John holds out to him, letting his father pull him up. His Dad's tone is teasing, but he still feels dully embarrassed, like new sunburn just coming in. 

"Dorkface here spilled all the cereal, but there's still eggs and stuff," Dean says, moving toward the fridge. "I could whip up something…"

"Nah." John shakes his head. Sam thinks he must have been out running; his tee-shirt and sweats are sweat damp and faintly streaked with dirt like he's been up in the woods. "I'm not all that hungry."

Sam goes for the broom and dustpan in the corner but freezes when John continues, "I was actually hoping to get a moment with Sam, here."

Sam sees a look pass between Dean and their father, a strange and frictional moment of tension he can't assign to anything. Abruptly, he remembers he hasn't told his father he's pregnant yet and wonders if Dean has. And then he wonders why the thought of John knowing makes his palms bleed sweat and the cereal in his stomach churn and clash. 

"Yeah," Dean says slowly, still looking at their Dad. "I got some errands I need to do in town anyway… That all right with you, Sam?" His gaze transfers then, from John to Sam, still some strange message in them that Sam doesn't understand at all.

"Yeah…" Sam's voice echoes Dean, the slow, drawn out hesitant tone as he looks from his father to his brother and wonders what he's missing. "Why wouldn't it be?"

Dean blinks and suddenly he's back to being Sam's more than slightly annoying older brother, like the strangeness never existed. "No reason." He aims a punch at Sam's shoulder; Sam falls back, his own hands coming up. Dean grins, irritatingly triumphant. "Clean up this mess while I'm gone. Make yourself useful."

Sam lunges for him, but he only skims his fingertips across hair as Dean dances behind Dad, using him as a human shield and cackling as he leaves. 

His Dad's got a faint, tolerant smile on his face and for a minute it feels so much like normal, like the last seven years of his life never happened—good or bad—and they're just the Winchester boys all over again. Sam knows he's more or less come to terms with the way John raised them, but it's not often he misses it, thinks of it with anything approaching fondness. 

It doesn't last long, because it never lasts long. Sam feels the awkwardness creep between them again, inescapable. He sighs. "So what's up, Dad?" He curls his fingers around the broom and tugs it toward him. It's a good excuse to avoid his Dad's eyes.

"Well." John shuffles his feet across the creaking wood. "Meant to have a talk with you yesterday. S'just with one thing and another never seemed to get around to it."

"Yeah?" Sam remembers the tense ride home, John seething from his treatment by the soldiers and Sam still numb by the revelation that he is, indeed, somehow _pregnant_. So. Yeah. Not a lot of talking. "'Bout what?"

He starts sweeping cereal until his Dad puts a hand on his shoulder and says, in just _that_ tone of voice, "Sam."

"I'm pregnant," Sam mumbles, more to forestall what his Dad's going to say than any desire to give John more reasons to look at him like a freak. "I'm…I'm _pregnant,_ sir." Sam would've sworn he was fine, but as he drags his gaze up to meet his father's, he feels himself shaking, quiet but violent trembles just beneath his skin. "I'm going to have a baby."

They're a close family, but they're not a _close_ family ( _Well, not before him and Dean, anyway…_ ). Sam doesn't expect his father to tug him into a hug and he _really_ doesn't expect the low soothing noises his father makes, or the way his hands make rough circles on Sam's back.

Most of his memories of comfort are of Dean and he guesses part of that is conscious. But he remembers this, remembers it on some visceral level, his Dad. "You're still my boy," John tells him. "My son. It's all right, Sam. We'll get through this."

Sam lets out a breath and gets a grip on himself. He pulls out of his father's grip and John lets him go without resistance. Sam feels wobbly on his feet but grateful. "I'm sorry." He rakes a hand through his hair and moves away.

John sighs. "I don't want you to be sorry, Sam. Hell, _I'm_ the one that's sorry."

Sam turns around. Too fast—he has to put out a hand to catch himself on the counter. "Sorry? What're you sorry about?"

There was a time Sam would have bet it was impossible for his father—or Dean, for that matter—to be embarrassed. But John's doing a fair imitation of it now, rubbing the back of his neck and looking sheepish. "Look, Sam, I know this hasn't been easy on you. 'N I know I haven't made it much easier. But it's not you." John sits down, the chair groaning briefly under him as he spreads his legs. "I just… This family's everything to me. And I saw a way to keep us together. And maybe it was a mistake. Maybe I was wrong to think we could handle this…that _I_ could handle this." 

"Well… We are handling it, right?" Sam shrugs. 

"I don't hate you, Sam."

Sam takes a deep, careful breath. "I know that."

"Do you?"

"Yeah."

John's palm slaps the table, making the dishes rattle. "Well, good. All right." John smiles. "Well, we should celebrate! Now that you're…" He waves a hand vaguely in the direction of Sam's abdomen, "maybe things can start getting back to normal around here."

Sam kicks at a couple flakes of bran. "Yeah," he agrees faintly. Already he keeps having the impulse to touch his belly every few minutes, even though there's nothing there he can tangibly feel. "Normal."


	18. Master

They should have been careful. They should have remembered to _be_ careful.

Or maybe they should've just remembered to stop.

Dean's already come and Sam's working toward it, Dean still half-hard and moving inside him, his fingers wrapped around Sam's cock. Sam's heel is digging a hole in Dean's shin and the other foot's hooked around his ankle; he arches back into Dean, pleading, "Dean…Dean, c'mon, please… _fuck_ , c'mon…"

And the truth is Dean should've been listening. He should've been paying attention. He'd just been so into it, into Sam, hot and writhing in his arms. Into the give of Sam's skin and the beat of his pulse between Dean's teeth, Sam's soft, growling encouragement of, "Yeah, yeah, yeah…"

"Sam." He can feel it. Sam's so close, starting to shake, his voice unstringing into broken syllables. He does this to Sam, _he_ does.

It takes him too long to hear the tramp of boots in the hall. It takes too long to understand what it is, what it means. Sam must hear it at the same time, because he stiffens and by the time their father's hand is rattling the knob, they're pulling apart, disentangling, going in opposite directions. 

"Boys, I just got a call from Bobby…"

There's nothing else this can be. The whole room stinks of sex, of sweat, of come. Dean's naked and Sam's naked and there's nothing else this can be. John stalls out in the doorway and Dean sees his Dad's eyes _flick-flick-flick_ , over his skin, over Sam's and the rumpled bed between them.

John's eyes close and he turns in a single, jerky pivot. 

Going. 

Leaving.

"Dad!" Dean springs after him, a million razor-winged pixies fluttering around in his chest. "Dad!"

Dean doesn't see it coming; just one moment he's moving and the next he's on the floor. It's another couple seconds before he feels the punch, rocketing through the bones of his face, down into his neck. 

"Dad!" Sam sounds shocked and sometimes Dean wonders how they ever grew up together. He tries to crowd past Dean, but Dean puts his arm out, blocking him. He glances up at Sam and shakes his head no. 

"Sam, you stay out of this; this is between your brother 'n me."

"Are you kidding me?" Sam pushes at Dean's blocking arm again. "Do you honestly hear the words coming out of your mouth?"

"What did you think would happen?" Dean gets up. He thinks the loose tooth in the back is a good sight looser now, but after that initial _ow_ , he's doing all right. His voice is the quietest and as usual, neither Sam nor Dad hears him. Keeping himself between them, he asks again, louder, "What did you think would happen, Dad? Huh?"

John points at him. "Don’t." A shake of his head. It's too dim to make out his eyes but Dean thinks it's probably better this way. "Don't you dare try to justify this."

"Why does _he_ have to justify anything?"

"Sam!" Dean rounds back towards Sam, irritation igniting in his terror. "Can I… Please. Can I just talk to Dad?"

Sam throws his hands up. "Yeah, sure, why not! Why should I think I have anything to do with this family?"

Dean flinches when Sam slams the bedroom door, but he doesn't take his eyes off his father. Not that the thinks John would try to hurt Sam, exactly. But.

It's a thorn, that 'but', piercing deep, but he holds his ground. 

"I want it to stop, Dean." His father's panting like he's been running, deep bullish snorts. "I don't want to talk about it. But I want it to stop."

John turns like that's the end of the conversation. 

"No."

His father double-takes, a spastic jerk of his neck, before he turns back toward Dean. "What?"

"I said no."

"Dean."

"I said _no_ , Dad. You don't get to decide this." He can believe how calm he sounds even though he feels about two seconds from puking. 

"The hell I don't!"

"This is about me and Sam."

"I'm not going to _discuss_ this with you, Dean." 

"No," Dean agrees. "You're not. Because there's nothing to discuss. Me and Sam… Jesus, Dad. What did you think would happen?"

"Not this. I thought you'd do your goddamned _job_ , son."

Dean's jaw lifts. "I am." 

For all his strong words, the impulse to puke strengthens, a sickening shakiness in his legs. There's no sound then, except the tide of their breath, the rhumba beat of his heart in his ears. 

Then, quietly: "I can't… I can't be here for this. Dean. Jesus… I… I can't watch you do this."

Dean's mouth is so dry he can barely make the spit to speak. "Yeah…well. No locks on the doors."

"Dean… Don't do this." It's a plea; there's no way for Dean to mistake it as anything else. It cuts with rusty claws to hear his father ask—beg—him for anything, let alone something he can't and won't grant. 

"He's my family. Family first," Dean says hoarsely, lips numb. "You taught me that."

John makes a choking noise. "He's your brother."

Dean's hands fist. "Who's having my baby. I think we fell off that moral high horse a while ago." He sags against the wall, though not so hard he can't be on his toes in a second. "Just leave, Dad. Me 'n Sam…we did okay when you left us. We'll be fine."

John doesn't even say another word; just waves one hand and walks away. This time, Dean lets him go.

Dean stands there a long time, leaning against one wall and his hand braced flat on the other. He doesn't think anything at all.

Sometime later, the door opens. He feels Sam standing there, heat and presence, and can't think of a damn thing to say.

"He gone?"

Well. That one's easy enough. "Yeah."

Sam sighs, strangled, frustrated and there's the shirr of his hand raking through his hair, across his face. "How long this time? We gonna end up having to look for him again?"

Dean raises his head and just _looks_ at him, amazed how dense Sam can be for someone so smart. "He's not coming back, Sam. He's _gone._ "

"Well, shit." This time Sam sounds dull, resigned beneath the edge of anger. "I… Are you all right with that?"

 _No, I'm not **all right with that**!_ Dean snarls…but only in his head. Because he made his choice and Sam needs him. Sam _needs_ him, more than he's ever needed Dean before. And that still has to mean something. Because otherwise…what's all this been for? "Yeah. M'just great."

Sam makes a noise through his teeth. "I'm still pissed, Dean. Don't think that I'm not."

Dean snorts. "Yeah. I got that, Sam. I just…"

He doesn't expect Sam's arms to go around him. His first instinct is to tuck for an attack, his next is to shove Sam off. He doesn't know if he wants this. 

He doesn't know if he wants this.

"Go to bed, Sam."

Sam's arms tighten. "Come with me."

Dean's arm falls to his side. "Yeah. Okay."


	19. Monster

Dad's leaving cracks Dean like an egg. 

Not on the surface, of course; Dean—in the absence of _anything_ approaching evidence—remains solidly convinced of his opacity and most of the time, Sam lets him have the illusion because Dean needs the ones he has left. 

Sam guesses he expected this. Or, really, since in his wildest thoughts he's never ever dreamed of Dean _defending_ their sex life and defying a direct order from their father, he didn't expect _this_ …but he'd expected John's departure. He'd expected Dean's ugly, silent grief. 

He just hadn't expected his own.

***

The chair is rickety and Sam dislikes trusting his weight to it—especially now—but there aren't a whole lot of places Sam's stuff is safe from his brother's utter lack of personal space, especially all the medical shit. 

Sam's come to accept there's nothing he can do to stop Dean from trying to protect him all the time. Or, rather, _no_ , he fights it tooth and nail, just on general principle, but he's become resigned to the fact that that's how Dean is wired and nothing Sam does or says is ever going to stop him. And so they're going to keep fighting over this same bloody inch of ground for the rest of their lives. 

But this…

Sam hates feeling like he's underestimating Dean.

Again.

The truth is Sam doesn't even know where to start with this or with Dean. He's still not real comfortable with the idea that he likes being fucked by his brother. That he likes _all_ of this, waking and sleeping and just…( _mating_ ) cohabitating. But more than that, his mind seems to think it's a whole different kettle of fish that Dean might—just might—want him too.

***

_He_ misses his father.

It's a little strange to admit and stranger to feel it, but on the other hand, it feels like his whole life has been about missing his father one way or another…

( _Where's Dad, Dean?_ )

…missing the father he wanted, the dad he craved, the one he _thought_ John should be. And then later, after Max Miller, missing the man who—like Sam-had lost the love of his life and gone on to build something strong from the ashes. The man that had saved them all the only way he knew how, even when it cost him his life. The man who'd somehow survived a pain that, at the time, felt like it would cripple Sam for life. Missing the man he'd barely known, the one who'd died, to save his son.

It's different now.

Sam doesn't think it's ever going to be _easy_ with him and John. Especially now. They're both too different, too much alike, too stubborn. But in the weird, peaceful time of living together, he'd gotten to know his father. As a man, as one adult person to another. He'd been able to ask questions and not be summarily dismissed. He'd been able to talk and have his father listen. 

And now that's all gone.

***

His fingers spider carefully over the splintery wood of the rafter until he comes across the rustling dryness of paper. The corners have already curled up in the damp, the pages are starting to feel brittle. 

It took another two days after their dad leaves before Paul Moody's got another job for Dean down at the garage. Mostly Sam's relieved. When they'd thought John was dead (and not just a demonic POW), Dean had gone on an unprecedented bender of celibacy; apparently when Dad just leaves, Dean's response is to fuck Sam more in those two days than in all the months prior. 

Sam's not exactly complaining, despite the voice in the back of his head that keeps screaming, _Come **on**! You are not seriously falling in love with your own brother!_ but he is tired and he is sore and he's got too many thoughts swirling around in his own head that he hasn't had an outlet for. 

Mostly Sam keeps all his medical crap together. He's not sure why he hid this, other than he really doesn't want Dean or John knowing about the pheromones. Not yet.

***

He tried to call John the day after he left. He didn't have anything prepared, no real words, just a panicked jumble of _it's not his fault, it's mine_ and _I'm sorry_ and _don't hate him/me_.

He's still angry, underneath it all. At the same time, he doesn’t want his father to disappear again. He doesn't want to have to wonder where he's gone, what's become of him, if he's dead. Again. 

In the end, it doesn't matter. John doesn't pick up the line and Sam can't think of anything to say to his father's voicemail. Nothing that'll make this any better. Any more palatable. Acceptable.

John doesn't pick up six hours later or six hours after that.

He never picks up at all.

***

**Mating Behaviors**.

_It should be reemphasized that very little is known about male pregnancy and what is known is largely unproven theory and anecdotal "evidence". What we do know is that breeding males exude small amounts of pheromones pretty much at all times._

_A pheromone is a chemical secreted by the body that influences—or even changes—behavior usually by acting as a repellent or an attractant. The pheromone secreted by breeding males is attractive in nature._

_Our olfactory sense—our sense of smell—is the strongest of all our senses. We are constantly affected by scents too subtle for us to smell consciously, including pheromones. How our mind interprets these subtle signals, however, varies from person to person._

_In the cases of breeding males, the affect of their pheromones seems to fall into two main behaviors. In some men, it seems to create a strong aggression response that may or may not result in violence against the breeding male. It is important to remain alert to your surroundings at all times and notify your Custodian if you think you or he might be in danger. Most of all, if you think you may be provoking a response in local males, it is important to leave the area immediately to allow the pheromonic response to dissipate._

Sam hates this. _Hates it_. Even the wonder that something living is growing inside him can't change the seething rebellion of every fiber of his being. He hates the bureaucracy of it, the paperwork to be filled out in quadruplicate, the numbers-only inhumanity of it, the stupid governmental slang. He hates the condescending, childish language as if he's too stupid to understand, as if his IQ plummeted the moment they discovered his uterus. He hates the clinical, fussy intrusiveness of it, of him. Most of all, he hates that _he saved the world_ , and in gratitude, it enslaved him. 

_A secondary response to the pheromones of a breeding male is what we call 'mating response'. Males under this pheromonic influence tend to display protective, nurturing behavior towards breeding males and their offspring._

_Conversely, there is a similar sense of possessiveness as in the more aggressive males, but it tends to demonstrate itself in fits of jealousy, intense sexual response, increased sexual response, intense tactile cues (touching, either sexual or nonsexual), protectiveness (increased aggression toward other—foreign—males. Males may be unusually attentive and/or affectionate._

_This protective behavior does usually extend to a breeding male's offspring, as well. Mating males, in general, make excellent parents._

_One of the dangers of mating behavior between a breeding male and a Custodial male, however, is a marked increase in the production of pheromones. It's unclear what makes some breeding pairs more inclined to mating behavior and increased pheromone output but it has been noted that successful breeding couples are more often those with significant pheromone output. It's conjectured that the production of pheromones may be linked somehow to fertility._

__

***

I'm sorry, Dean. I'm so sorry.

***

"Wait." When Dean pops the button on Sam's jeans and jerks down the zipper, the jittery feeling inside Sam bursts into full flower. Sam pulls the sheaf of papers from between the couch cushions, even more dog-eared and wrinkled than before its sojourn in the rafters. "I want you to read this."

Dean gives a ferocious tug, pulling Sam's jeans and shorts from under his ass and down his thighs, sliding Sam forward. The back of Sam's head rebounds off the back of the couch, not exactly painfully. "What, _now_?" 

Annoyed wars with astonished, wars with _oh, God, Sammy, you freaking **dork**_ across Dean's face, each distinct and recognizable, making Sam want to take it back, to say _naw, Dean, we can totally do this later. Like…after you're done sucking my dick_. Sam recognizes his timing could be better. Except Sam's not that guy. You can cheat the rest of the world, but you don't welch on the family. So he just nods.

Dean rolls his eyes and picks the stapled pages up with one hand, the fingers and thumb of the other still stroking absently at Sam's naked thigh. "Pheromones?" he asks a couple second later, eyebrows lifting. "Are you fucking shitting me?" He tosses the brochure on the couch.

"Dean…" Sam takes a deep breath through his tight throat, distracted as much by the light, idle trace of Dean's hand across his skin as the conversation he's _trying_ to have. "Can we just… Can we not joke about this? It's serious, okay? It's real."

"Sam—" Dean sighs before he settles back on his heels. He squeezes Sam's thigh once before his fingers slide to Sam's knee instead. "Since when are we taking these medical geeks as gospel, anyway?"

"I'm not," Sam insists. "But this…this is real. I know it. I… This is why those guys went after me like they did in Missoula…"

"Those guys were low-lifes," Dean scoffs. "They didn't need an excuse to stick their dicks somewhere it didn't belong." Sam flinches and Dean's fingers tighten over the bone. "You know what I mean."

Sam looks Dean in the eyes. "What would you do, if I told you to go, to leave? If I told you to go after Dad and back to hunting and just…leave me here?"

"I'd say you've finally lost what little brains you had and if it's drugs you're on, I'll kick your scrawny ass from here to Lawrence."

Sam lets his head fall back on the couch. "Dean, I'm serious."

"Sam." The tone of Dean's voice makes Sam tilt his head back up, regarding Dean from under his eyelashes. Dean's expression isn't mocking or sarcastic anymore; it's the frustrated, trapped look he gets when he's been backed into a corner and feels forced to (God forbid!) be sincere. "Look, man. My whole life, I've had one job. One."

Sam squirms, hating the reminder. "Yeah, Dean, I know."

"No. You _don't_ know, if you think I'm just… I don't even know, man! What the hell are we talking about anyway? You really think some…fairy dust's got my head turned all around?"

"Pheromones," Sam corrects, because he can't not, even now. "And…I don't know. I just…"

"You just nothing. You think too fucking much." Dean puts both his hands on Sam, then, high on Sam's naked hips, reminding him that he's still half-naked. "I take care of you. It's all I do, all I'm good at."

"That's not all…"

Dean shakes his head. "I don't need you blowing up my skirt, Sam. I'm fine with who I am, what I do."

"What we do?"

Dean's head ducks a little and the curves of his ears turn red. "Way I see it, that's between you and me," Dean says quietly. "You wanna quit, all you have to do is say it."

Despite everything, it's hard for Sam to shake his head and mumble, "No…it's not that…"

"I mean…" Dean's chuckle is half-hearted, teasing, coaxing, "give me some credit for knowing my own mind, here, man. I don't… It's not because of how you smell. Okay?" Dean sighs deeply, the rasping note on the end speaking of his frustration. "You're my family." He shakes Sam a little before his hands slide abruptly up, under Sam's shirt. He's not especially ticklish—he couldn't have survived all these years with Dean if he was—but the deliberate brush of Dean's hands across his abdomen makes Sam flinch. "This is our family. I'll take care of you. I'll take care of us. You just have to let me."

"What about Dad?"

Dean shakes his head. "I can't worry about Dad." Sam looks at him. The blush on Dean's ears gets redder but he shakes his head again. "I can't. And you know Dad would want it that way, if he was here."

Sam laughs, though it's more out of horror than anything else. "I don't think Dad wants any of this."

Dean rolls his eyes and snorts, his thumbs making soft, heated arcs against Sam's belly. "Look, do you want your dick sucked, or what?"

"Well," Sam drawls judiciously, shifting his hips and spreading his thighs wider. "Since you're down there…."

***

Later. 

Later when his brother sleeps and Sam himself is fading:

_Thank you, Dean. Thank you for not leaving me._

Dean snuffles, rolls on his back and starts to snore.


	20. Music

**1.Seeing is believing.**

Dean's always watched Sam. It's just different now.

Sam sleeps on his back a lot now. He shoves his hands down his sweats or shorts if he goes to bed clothed. If not, then he sleeps with his hands folded over the sparse line of hair trailing down from his navel. He always turns on his side a couple minutes before he wakes up, so Dean doesn't think he even knows he's doing it. It's not like Dean's going to enlighten him, especially if it means copping to some lame-o sentiment like that he was watching Sam while he was sleeping because he knows Sam's going to make some big deal out of it and it's totally not like that.

As Sam's waist started to expand, Dean went out and bought him new jeans, but Sam being the stubborn cuss he is, he won't wear them. He just hangs out in old baggy sweats and basketball shorts and shirts big enough to fit all three of the Winchesters together if that wasn't too gross a thought to even contemplate. Not that it's all that different from how Sam dressed before, but more than ever, Dean gets the sense that Sam's trying to disappear in all those clothes, trying make himself small—which is just fucking absurd.

But it's only when Sam's sleeping, only when he lies like that, unconsciously cradling the growing swell of his belly, that Dean can really, truly believe there's a person growing in there.

 **2\. Would still smell as sweet**.

"Ugh! Jesus, you stink!" Sam shoves Dean back across the mattress.

"I just showered!" Dean sniffs his pits for good measure, in case he missed something, but he's deeply offended by the implication.

Sam's nose wrinkles. "I know. I can smell. What _is_ that?"

"It's Irish Spring. It's the same soap we've been using!" But he's yelling at Sam's retreating back and over the ugly noise of retching. Dean flops back on the mattress and throws his arm over his eyes. Last week it was the laundry detergent. Dean bought five different brands before he found an unscented one that didn't make Sam's delicate stomach rebel. "You all right?"

Sam belches, a thick noise that makes Dean's stomach lurch. "Yeah, I'm fucking great." When Dean looks over, Sam's resting his head on his forearm on the toilet seat. Dean put a night light in the bathroom when Sam's whole nausea thing started up; Sam's silhouetted against it's faint rose glow and Dean can see the rounding of his belly.

Sam doesn't look pregnant. Or maybe Dean's brain still can't quite wrap around the idea. Mostly it looks like Sam's put on a bit of a gut and, as usual, Dean has a hard time imagining a baby in there.

Dean sighs. "You come out of there I'll try…and rinse all this off." He's not looking forward to it. The hot water had been pretty much gone by the time he'd climbed out of the shower the first time and it's been nowhere near enough time for it to recoup. 

"I can sleep in the other bed or something," Sam says, his voice small, flattened.

"No." Dean vetoes instantly, rolling to the edge of the bed and sitting up. He hopes he hasn't left enough of a trace on the sheets to irritate Sam. He _really_ does not want to have to change the linen in the middle of the night and after an ice-cold rinse.

Sam hawks and spits. "S'not like I won't be up and down all night anyway."

The bitterness in Sam's tone isn't all vomit and Dean shoves off the sighing edge of the mattress chafing with his helplessness to do anything about it. "No," he says again. He wants to touch Sam but he's pretty sure that'll set off another spasm of dry heaves, so instead he steps over his brother's storklike legs, slides past Sam's ass and grabs the empty tumbler on the sink. Cold water and a jolt of salt from the shaker that sits next to the tumbler; Dean shakes the glass haphazardly and hands it to Sam.

"Thanks."

Dean grunts, strips out of his still-damp boxers and climbs into the shower. His mind is already on tomorrow and how many bars of soap he should buy.

**3\. From hand to hand, wrist to the elbow.**

"Is this okay?"

Sam makes a noncommittal noise and doesn't look Dean in the eye. Dean sighs to himself and wonders when he got so fucking whipped and when they both turned into goddamn girls. _Maybe around the same time Sam copped his uterus_ , he thinks and pushes anyway, "Sam?"

"I don't know." Sam sounds stifled. His thighs twitch against Dean's hips like he's unsure if he wants to close them or not. "I… They're sore."

Dean's finger thoughtfully traces the edge of Sam's nipple one last time, warm and slightly raised, furled tight. Sam makes a helpless noise in his throat that goes straight to Dean's dick and squirms a little, under his skin. "Should I not touch them at all?"

Like his belly, Sam's pecs haven't suddenly transformed into breasts (and Dean's not one hundred percent on how he feels about that, because, you know, _breasts_ ) but they've definitely filled out and changed. A little more Vin Diesel, if you will.

Yet another noise, this one humming and slightly annoyed. At the same time, Sam's still hard, his hips making tiny pushes for friction against Dean's shoulder. "I didn't say that."

Dean circles just outside the aureole this time, dragging a little with his nail. Sam's breath catches and he gives one stronger thrust. Dean watches goose pimples bead up from Sam's skin with a smile that he hides against Sam's stomach.

"Don't." There's no mistaking Sam's tone then, sharp and cutting. Dean lifts his head, letting his surprise show on his face. Dull color flares up in Sam's face like sunburn. "I don't… Not my stomach, okay?"

"Am I going to hurt the baby?" He hadn't thought of that and he lifts up on his elbows hastily. "It's not the baby, right? Like…I didn't just mash its face or something, did I? Jesus, Sam, why don't you tell me these things?"

Sam's fingers close around Dean's bicep before he can pull entirely away. "No." His lips flatten and spread in classic bitchface. "You're not gonna hurt the baby." Sam rolls his eyes then cuts his gaze away like Dean should've known that. "Just. Don't, okay? Not the stomach."

Dean can't even see Sam's eyes from under the lowered lids and lashes but the stiff lines of his body and the brick colored flush in Sam's face say everything Dean needs to hear. The problem is he doesn't have the slightest fucking idea how to go about making this okay for Sam. 

The sex… Well. It's _sex_. Dean's always been good at sex. Sex is like hunting; it's physical, straightforward, no bullshit. 

This, on the other hand, is a world of bullshit. The kind of bullshit that Sam excels at miring himself in and that Dean would almost rather lose a testicle than get into. 

He didn't expect this. Okay, that's sort of obvious. But it's more than that. Dean never thought he'd be in a position to worry about someone having his kid. He never figured he'd live long enough to have a kid at all, barring catastrophic condom failure and since most of the girls he fucked never had his real name anyway, it was a double non-issue. 

But this is _Sam_.

Dean draws himself up very straight. "Are you ashamed of our love child, Samuel Winchester?" he demands, throwing deep suspicion in his tone. Sam's eyes blink wide and the look that crosses his face is totally worth it. "Because I think I might have to _cry_ ," he sniffles and wipes underneath each of his eyes with his knuckles, "if I thought you were less than _enthusiastic_ about producing the child that will represent our One. True. Love…" Dean lowers his face into his hands and sobs loudly.

Sam snorts. And then he chuckles, pulling one leg back to push Dean in the shoulder. Dean rolls with it, coming out from behind his hands to show his grin. "Bitch," Sam says, toes digging into Dean's skin.

Dean brings his arm up and shoves Sam's leg wide, leaving him spread again. The ball of Dean's thumb traces the inside tendon, slow and thoughtful, as he looks at Sam sprawled out before him. It's weird. He doesn't think it's ever really going to stop being weird. But there's something good here too.

"Still wanna fuck?" He leans in and runs the tip of his nose and his lips across where Sam's cock meets his body, coarse hair rasping against his stubble, the warmth of Sam against his cheek. He hears Sam's sharp inhale, feels when Sam starts to arch up and catches himself. Sam's fingers stutter across Dean's shoulder, flutter through his hair and when Dean opens his eyes and shifts a little to look up the length of Sam's body, Sam is looking back, glazed and openmouthed, flushed and desperate. Heat is rising beneath Sam's skin, soaking into Dean.

Dean grins. This is the easy part.

Seems like a lifetime ago that Sam told him that things between them, between the family, weren't ever going to be the same and that had been an ugly, bitter pill to swallow. But here and now—as he smoothes his hands up over the swell of Sam's stomach and feels him first stiffen and then relax—Dean feels like, for the first time, he can see a way 'change' might not equal 'worst thing ever'. 

_This is my family,_ he reminds himself again.

**4\. For the day has come, when our hearts will beat as one.**

"Mr. Winchester?"

Dean startles under his skin and turns away from the window, away from where the Impala bakes out on the tarmac, gleaming bright like a droplet of oil. It's not that he forgot that the receptionist is there. This time its Whitlow, who looks too pudgy-soft for the military until his uniform pulls tight across his thigh or his bicep or even the mound of his belly and you realize it's hard muscle under all that blob. Whether it's Whitlow or one of the other two that regularly cycle through The Center's front office—Bannaker or Spinnace—they all seem to have an unspoken agreement to ignore Dean while he's here kicking his heels and waiting for Sam to get done. And Dean's just fine with that, itching inside his skin for every moment that they're here, anyway. 

"Yeah?" He sounds angry; he tries to spin it and tell himself that he just sounds tough, but really it's anger and the realization is like a key, unlocking it from his chest and letting it spill out through him like burning falls of lava that sear and smoke. 

It's always like this when he—when _they_ —are here, strapped down tight and burbling because he can't afford to fuck this up but _there_ and Dean scrambles to pull it back together and shove it down because there's no fucking way he's going to go batshit just because Whitlock gave him a little scare.

 _You're babbling, Dean,_ he thinks. _Strap it down and strap it on. Right fucking now._

"They asked for you in the exam room," Whitlow says, his bland tone unchanged. 

"They what?" He's never been allowed in with Sam when they're doing his exams. Given what they're probably doing to Sam in there—and his feelings about those body parts when they're on his own person—he's of two mind about it. "Is Sam okay? Is something wrong?"

"I wouldn't know." Whitlow buzzes the door to let Dean through. "They just asked for you in the exam room. Exam room three."

Dean gives himself the leeway to flip Whitlow off once he's on the other side of the door. 

In the exam room, his eyes go to Sam first thing. Sam and the doctor are looking at one of the medical torture devices scattered around the room, but when Dean opens the door, Sam glances at him instead. Dean doesn't know how to characterize what he sees there, but Sam's eyes are bright, _alive_ , like they get when he's talking about some obscure translation error in old Etruscan demonology lore or other weird shit like that. Dean can't remember the last time he saw that expression, that look.

There's this noise coming from the machine, though, a fast, hissing, swooshing. Dean looks from it to his brother and the doc. "What is that? Is it supposed to sound like that? That's bad, right?" He squints at the screen, but it looks like static and video game colors. "Is that bad?"

Sam's gown is pulled up under his armpits—which is, like, the stupidest thing _ever_ —and the doc's rocking some kind of roller over Sam's shined up stomach. Sam smiles and reaches for Dean who shuffles over. Sam grabs Dean's fingers and—before Dean can make some protest about hand-holding, especially in front of the doc—presses it against the side of his stomach. It doesn't feel any different than it did before, or last night, but Sam whispers, "It's the heartbeat," and it changes. Everything changes.

Everything changes.

**5\. Sweeter than bee pollen.**

They're about thirty miles from The Center and another fifty from the house when Dean jerks the wheel sideways, taking them over onto the grassy side of the road.

"Jesus, Dean!" Sam's hands slap out to the dashboard and door but he skids sideways anyway, half-falling onto Dean. "The fuck, man? A little warning!"

But Dean can't warn Sam because he doesn't even know what this is. Dean throws the car into park and then he throws Sam back into the door. His fingers worm under Sam's shirt to curve around the heated swell where their baby lives and his mouth jags onto Sam's, making it fit, making it open.

 _Baby,_ he thinks. _Baby, baby, baby…_


	21. Magic

"Dean, I want this baby."

Dean looks up from the scattered mess of wood and parts. His eyes widen and his mouth twists crooked. "Um…yeah, Sam. That would be why I'm putting the crib together."

"No." Sam's toe digs into the wood of the floor and it's an effort to keep his hand from creeping down to cup his belly. He keeps touching himself—touching the baby—all the time. It creeps him out a little bit, the way he can't seem to control it, but at the same time he feels a little more solid, a little more _this is really real_ when he does it. "I mean…" Sam fumbles for the ephemera of what he _does_ mean. He hadn't planned on having this conversation. He's got nothing prepared in his mind, only this strange, swelling urgency at the sight of Dean on the floor of the second bedroom with crib bits strewn all around him. " _I_ want this baby. I do. Not 'cause they're making me—us—have her but because she's _mine_."

And there, again. Without noticing, his fingers have cupped under his 'bump', supporting it. Of course, his back's been on low-level ache since late last night, so maybe he can blame it on that. 

Dean's still totally clueless, just staring at him, and Sam feels heat roll through him like an ocean wave. "Well…yeah," Dean says again, slowly. He wipes his hands on his jeans and then stands up. Sam recognizes Dean's tone and sidelong stance with softened shoulders; it's the one he uses when he thinks he needs to 'handle' Sam and he's not sure how to do so. Recognition births irritation, a red-hot needle jab that balls his hands up into taut fists. 

It only gets worse when Dean raises his eyebrows and asks, "Sammy… What are we even talking about?"

Sam feels a spot over his left eye throb hard and sickeningly and the breath he sucks in through his lungs feels thick and heavier than normal. "You're not _stupid_ , Dean! I shouldn't have to explain everything to you like you're five fucking years old!"

Somewhere at the edge of his mind—and his irritation—Sam has to admit he's not even sure what he means, what he's trying to say, but that doesn't make it any less infuriating for Dean to try and pull the same _aw, shucks_ routine he used on every skanky ho he ever fucked.

 _And they are legion_ , he thinks, strange, bursting heat filling up his chest even fuller until he feels ready to put his fist through a wall. _It's not like you're in an exclusive club here, **Sammy**._

"No, I'm not stupid," Dean agrees, an edge on his tone less smooth than any of their collection of knives, "but I'm not goddamn psychic, either. Of course we're keeping our kid, Sam; I don't remember ever agreeing to anything else and I'll cut the balls of anybody who tries…" Dean stops and his eyebrows do something complex that Sam can't read. "Did you say 'her'?"

Sam rolls his eyes, torn between annoyance and guilt that he hadn't told Dean.

"They told you?" Dean's stammering and he takes a step toward Sam, his hand out a little bit like he's going to touch Sam's stomach. Sam stiffens and pulls back tight into the doorway without really meaning too, the throb in his eye radiating down his stiff neck and into the dull ache in his lower back like a circuit completing. "They can tell already?"

"Yeah." Sam's whole body still aches with emotion, but it's hard to hold onto it against the nakedness of Dean's face, his open enthusiasm. Dean doesn't touch Sam's stomach, his fingers curving around Sam's side instead to spread across the small of his back right where it aches. 

If Sam keeps touching himself, then Dean keeps touching Sam, as if he's some kind of good luck charm or idol. Sometimes it's annoying and sometimes it's not and sometimes—like now—Sam just leans into it, the tightness in his chest opening into a long, familiar and hungry darkness.

"A girl?" Dean asks again, tilting his face up to Sam's. "For real? For sure?"

"Yeah." It's not fair. It's not fair that, even pregnant, he's still a guy and thinks too much with his dick. It's not fair that he's still so angry but Dean crowds into him in the right way, touches him the right way and he's all hormones and need. It's unfair Dean can do this, reduce him to this.

"A girl," Dean says softly, amazed.

"Our corporate masters will be pleased." Sam rolls his eyes and tries to pull away but he doesn't even fool himself with that tone of voice and Dean's hand tightens right across where Sam aches the worst, resulting in a momentary thrill of _ohmygodrelief_ that almost unhinges his knees. "It's not a big deal."

"Liar." First Dean's breath ghosts across Sam's mouth and then his lips, dry, chapped and soft beneath the broken skin.

"Dean…" Sam pulls his head back from the kiss. As though he didn't want Dean to do it, Sam guides one of Dean's hands to the sideswell of his stomach. "I really want this. I really want her. I want to be her dad or her mom or whatever it is that I am. I _want_ to have this baby."

Dean's hands soothe across Sam's skin, so surprisingly gentle. But whatever he's going to say is forestalled by the sudden jangle-vibrate of his phone, making them both jerk, startled. Sam sags back against the doorjamb, laughing a little to himself while Dean fumbles for the phone.

"It's Bobby," Dean says apologetically. He thumbs the connection open and leaves the room, bellowing, "Yo, Bobb-ay!"

Sam knows why Dean doesn't want Sam to be there when he takes the call. Dean checks in with Bobby at least once a week, asking for news about Dad. He doesn't know that Sam knows and really, Sam doesn't want him to know. Dean needs his secrets like he needs Dad and it's Sam's fault he lost the one, he's not going to take the other.

Sam sighs and looks over the pieces of crib scattered across the floor. He's not normally superstitious—outside the stuff that's true, of course—but he'd felt uneasy when Dean had shown up with it, bought secondhand and worn with use. It had been…too real. Too tangible a reminder.

And then, too, he thinks of the information in his Breeder's binder, the inescapable statistics of how—even if they _do_ have uteruses—how few men carry to term. How few of them even make it past their first trimester.

_Well, we made it this far, didn't we, baby?_

The heel of Sam's hand makes a couple agitated circles across his stomach. His back is still aching and lately he feels like he's got all the grace of a lumbering hippo, but finally, Sam lowers himself awkwardly to the floor and picks up Dean's discarded screwdriver.

When Sam was younger and they were on the Winchesters' Great Roadtrip of Doom, he never spent the kind of time Dad and Dean did, tinkering with the car. He'd had no shortage of resentment and it wasn't hard for some of it to spill over onto the Impala, symbol of their ongoing rootlessness. When the semi had flattened the Impala, Dean hadn't wanted any hands on her other than his, the same way he hadn't wanted Sam poking at his broken heart. 

So Sam's a little surprised at the way fitting the jumble of wooden pieces and metal brackets and innumerable little screws into something like order soothes the ragged edges of his mood and quiets his brain to more bearable white noise.

He doesn't know how long he's been at it when he becomes aware of Dean filling the doorway he so recently vacated, but considering the crib's about two-thirds put together and the _vicious_ , dull ache of his lower back, it's been a lot longer than he thinks. His legs are halfway to numb too and between that and the baby bulk, he flaps his hands at Dean for help getting to his feet.

Dean's mouth curves into his usual smirk, but he doesn't crack wise on Sam as he takes Sam's hands and pulls him up, grunting a little with the effort. Sam's grateful, especially since he's got to cling to Dean for several moments while the blood and feeling works itself back down his legs. "I've got an idea," Dean says instead.

The promise in Dean's tone and the way his voice rasps over the soft words curls darkly along Sam's spine and down into his belly and groin. "Oh, yeah?" His voice comes out normal but he feels a long way from it, split between the Sam that can't believe this is happening and the one that wants to guide his brother's hand between his legs to cup his cock. 'What's that?"

But Dean only bracelets Sam's wrist and tugs. "Come on."

Dean leads him out of the cabin entirely, out to the Impala. 

"Aw, no, Dean." Sam looks at his brother over the Impala's hood as Dean goes around to the other side of the car to get in. "I'm kind of tired, you know? I don't really feel like going anywhere."

"Naw, it'll be good." Dean's fairly bouncing on his toes. The sun's about an hour from setting and Sam can't tell if it's the slanting orangey light or excitement that makes Dean's eyes so bright. "C'mon. If you're not having fun, we can come home, I promise."

Sam still has reservations. Since he found out he's pregnant—and about the pheromones—he hasn't wanted to leave the house much. But it's hard—and annoying—to resist Dean when he's got that face. He heaves a sigh and climbs in. "All right, but if I puke, I don't wanna hear any shit about it."

"The Impala?" Dean's voice squeaks a little on the end. "Dude. I can just pull over."

Sam huffs and rolls his eyes. 

When Dean pulls out on the main drag, Sam expects him to turn right, toward town, but instead, Dean wheels left instead.

"Where are we going?"

Dean clicks his tongue. "Now, Sammy, you're a smart boy. I'm sure you realize that if I _tell_ you, it's no longer a surprise."

Sam snorts and slouches down in the seat, trying to ease the tension in his shoulders and spine. He _is_ tired—which sort of goes without saying; Sam feels like he's unwillingly making up for every sleepless night he spent waiting up for Dean and/or his Dad. The dry swish of the tires and the soothing rumble of the Impala's engine were his lullaby for a long time and their power remains undiminished. By the time Dean pokes him in the ribs to wake him, his head is flung back on the rest and his cheek is damp-slick with drool.

Sam straightens fast, thankful there's nothing more disgusting in his mouth than his sleep coated tongue, and wipes his face quickly and self-consciously. "Where are we?" He looks out the windshield, blinking the sleep from his eyes. "Oh, no way!"

The Impala nudges forward another couple feet closer to the ticket booth of the **FAIRWEATHER DRIVE-IN**. Dean looks smug and self-satisfied and Sam guesses he's got every right to, because Sam feels a thrill that goes down his spine at the idea. 

When they were kids, the drive-in was a rare and special treat, a reward for following the rules, obeying orders, being good and quiet, strong and smart. He hadn't thought there were really any left, especially after the plague and the deaths.

"Should we be here?" Sam asks nervously, eyeing the cars ahead of them before craning to see the ones behind. Quite suddenly, his throat feels dry and his heart picks up speed. "I don't… Is it safe?"

Dean shrugs. "It's a nice night. I figure we can keep the windows rolled up, see how it goes. If we have to leave, we have to leave. At least we got out of the house for a while."

The guy at the ticket booth looks at Dean cross-eyed when Dean doesn't roll the window down any further than he has to, to poke the money out and get the tickets back but he doesn't say anything and Dean eases the Impala into a spot off to the side, away from the main cluster toward center-screen.

When they're parked, Dean produces a cooler from the trunk with snacks, root beer for Sam and the real thing for himself. "So this was a good idea, right?" Dean uses his ring to pry off the top of his bottle of beer. It hisses and foams a little over his fingers; Dean slurps up the overflow and then licks it off his fingers. "Right?"

Sam huffs a laugh and twists the cap off his soda. "Yeah, Dean. This… This is real good."

Dean smile widens and Sam tries to remember the last time he saw Dean so happy. Sam's not really sure what to expect—and the thought of trying to have sex in the car at his height _and_ with the belly seems ludicrous if not outright impossible—but Dean seems content to just rest one hand on Sam's thigh as the movie starts, kneading absently and irregularly.

Dean doesn't mention it and neither does Sam.

The movie's an old one, from before the change. It hasn't been any time at all in historical terms and already it feels strange to see women parading across the screen, strange to see the fullness of their breasts and the low sway of their hips, hear their voices. Since the change, there's been a surge in transvestitism, but it's not the same. It only adds to Sam's sense of fascination and it's not long before he's into it.

Sam tries to drink sparingly, but most days it feels like his bladder's the size of a walnut. It feels like no time at all before he's squirming and twisting in the seat. He feels monumentally stupid. He should have known better than to drink anything at all but bumming around the house, he hasn't had to worry about being too far from a bathroom.

"Dean," he says, straightening and ignoring the sudden protesting throb of his back. "Dean…I gotta go, man."

"Whaddya mean…oh." Dean squeezes Sam's thigh. "You wanna go?"

Sam shakes his head. It's ridiculous, but he feels shaky and close to crying. Not that he's going to do any such thing, but it's close, a trembling uncertainty like when he was little. "I don't think I can make it." He hates to admit it, one more humiliation, but he knows it's true.

Dean just nods, like he was expecting that. "Well, come on. It'll be fine. I'll watch your back." His fingers run down to Sam's knee and back. "It'll be fine."

Sam swallows and makes himself nod. He hasn't thought about the men in Missoula in several weeks, but the memory of them is right with him now. He swallows again and looks out the window. The drive-in is only about half-full, which is a plus, but he knows from experience how much people tend to congregate around the snack bar and restrooms. The thought of all those people pressing against him, against _the baby_ makes him feel panicky and strangely angry and the thought of them putting their hands on him—them—is completely intolerable.

"Hey. Wait. Wait," Dean says suddenly, patting Sam's leg. "It's okay. Forget it. I've got an idea." He rolls down his window and pours out his beer onto the gravel in a splat before handing Sam the empty, sudsy bottle. 

"You're not serious." Sam stares at the bottle and then Dean's face. The yeasty smell of the empty bottle is suddenly sickening. "Dean—"

Dean shrugs. "The other option is to use the john here. What do you want to do?" Dean tilts his head. "It's not like it's the first time, right?" His grin is bright and completely inappropriate. "Be just like old times."

"Yeah, in case you forgot, I hated the 'old times'." Sam grits his teeth and takes the bottle. It's awkward and uncomfortable and for a _long_ time, Sam can't get the piss to come. His back is throbbing worse than ever now. And then _finally._ Finally.

"This is so gross," Sam groans, head down, as the bottle fills. 

"Yeah, well, it's better than the alternative." 

Sam cries out sharply as the sudden, violent _stab_ of pain from his back. The bottle drops from his nerveless fingers.

"Aw, fuck, Sam, what?" Dean sounds outraged but Sam can't focus on it, pain radiating up and out of his back, down into his gut, his bowels. Sam doubles over, whimpering, fumbling for the door handle with some insane, obscure idea of crawling out, crawling away, away from the pain. 

"Sam?" Dean queries, attention finally shifting from the defacement of the Impala. "Sam? What's wrong? _Sam?_ "

Sam shakes his head. "I…" He curls tighter around it, starting to burn, deep inside. "I don't know. Go, Dean. _Go._ "

"Go." Dean sounds dazed, panicky. He turns the key over in the ignition and the Impala roars to life. It's like the music of the archangels. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. Hang on, Sam. It'll be okay, just hang on." Faintly, Sam hears him whisper, "Please hold on."

Sam whimpers again when the Impala lurches into motion, gravel squeaking under the tires. There's not enough room for him to curl up into fetal position, but Sam gives it his best shot anyway. He wants to tell Dean to hurry, but it hurts too much, deep cramping waves of heat and pain that rocket through his nervous system. 

He wants to tell Dean to hurry…but he's pretty sure it's already too late.


	22. Mortality

_I'm sorry, Mr. Winchester._

The doctor's dry, emotionless voice circles around in Dean's head, repeating those same dry, emotionless words. It doesn't mean anything. Dean can't make it mean anything.

He looks down at his hands and finds he's holding a cup of coffee. He doesn't remember getting it, doesn't remember where he got it from. Maybe it was for Sam? Except Sam can't drink caffeine, he remembers. He tips it into the garbage.

_"You have to understand, Mr. Winchester… Breeders like Sam may have the equipment, but the truth is that men really aren't meant to give birth."_

_"I don’t care about all that. I just want to know about Sam. Is he gonna be okay?"_

_"Well. We prefer to avoid surgery whenever possible and it's going to take Sam another couple days to pass the fetus naturally. He'll need to stay here, so we can keep an eye on him."_

_"But he's okay? He'll be okay?"_

_"Physically—and barring complications—Sam will be fine."_

He doesn't know where to go or what to do with himself. Sam seem doesn't want him around but he can't bring himself to leave the hospital completely, go home. _Home._ Jesus. Like there really is such a thing, with Dad God knows where and Sam laid up here. Vaguely, he wishes for the coffee he just threw away. It was a rookie move. 

_I should've never brought him out like that._ It isn't the first time he's thought that, or even the hundredth, rolling around like the doctor's pointless apology. _I'm sorry, Mr. Winchester._

 _Sorry,_ Dean scoffs to himself. _**Sorry.** What the fuck he's got to be sorry to me for? I didn't lose the fucking baby._ Hands dug in his pockets, he turns and heads back for the cafeteria. Sam's in no condition to watch his six; Dean's going to need that caffeine. _He should've been in there taking care of Sam, instead of yabbering at me._

And then, like clockwork: _Should've never brought him out. Should've never left the house with him. Knew he wasn't feeling good. I'm so fucking stupid. I can't believe I was so dumb, like a fucking movie is that goddamn important. I could've **rented** a stupid movie._

Sam didn't blame him. Or Sam _said_ he didn't, which is probably as good as it'll get. But Sam doesn't blame Dean for a lot of the fucked up shit he's done over the years, so it's not like he's a reliable witness.

_"It's just one of those things." Sam's voice is normal, maybe even a little remote, but Dean's not fooled. Not when he can look into Sam's eyes and see nothing but wreckage and deep shadows. "We knew it could happen. Hell, we knew it was **likely**." Sam looks away and Dean watches his throat work, Adam's apple bob. "All the literature said so. Over and over."_

The problem with that notion is that Dean read the literature too. All of it. He'd even gone back and read that crap about pheromones that had had Sam just about twisting a nut off. He'd read the risks, the confusing tangle of statistics and math jargon (Dean can work about just enough math to figure tips, trajectories and wind speed and leaves the rest of it alone) all spelling out the same thing: pregnant men are weirdly fragile and all effort should be made to protect them, not drag them all around the countryside in search of cheap kicks.

If Dad were here, he'd kick Dean's ass halfway to outer-space and back again.

 _Dad,_ Dean thinks, and turns around again, away from the cafeteria door.

His cell phone is dutifully turned off, but there's a bank of pay phones right near the johns. He already knows his dad won't pick up if he calls, but he's been relying on other means to get messages to John for close to four months now and there's at least one other person in the world who might care that Sam's laid up.

"Dean? That you?" Bobby asks, to Dean's croaked and mangled "hey".

Dean clears his throat and tries again. "Hey, Bobby."

"This isn't your cell. Everything a'right?" Trust Bobby to get to the point. Bobby's tone is guarded, as well, cautious.

"I…yeah." Dean leans his head against the crook of his arm, braced against the payphone's surface. "No. No, I'm at the hospital."

"Sam?"

"Yeah."

"Bad?" Beneath Bobby's surface neutrality Dean hears the echo of the last time something was 'seriously wrong' with Sam. At least this time, Sam isn't dead. Still, Dean feels the echo of that distant shame, crawling through him uneasily.

"Yeah. Well. No, not really. Sam's okay." Dean teases the dry skin flaking from his lip between his teeth. "I mean…they say he's going to be okay. I don't know." He knows the words he has to say; he's got them lined up neatly in his mind like soldiers at parade rest, just waiting for the order to go. Even so, they won't move, stubbornly glued to his tongue or the roof of his mouth. He realizes abruptly that he hasn't said the words yet. Not to anyone. The shakiness of his own voice turns his stomach acid and sour and Dean rakes a hand through his hair and repeats helplessly, "I don't know."

"You boys need me to come on out there?"

And it's _stupid_ , you know? It's completely fucking insane that Bobby's offer, simple and gruffly extended, should choke up in his throat and make his eyes sear with something that is not, cannot and will not be tears. 

And it's not that Bobby hasn't been a good—hell, a _great_ —friend to them, even though Dean suspects they've brought double their share of trouble to his doorstep on more than one occasion. Bobby's stuck by them through Hell (pretty damn literally) and high water and even through this—two brothers fucking and having a kid.

But it just grinds home the fact that it should be their father on the other end of the line. It should be John asking if he should be there. Hell, he shouldn't _have_ to ask. He should just _be here_. 

But he isn't. 

For the first time, Dean wonders if Sam hadn't been right about Dad, all these years. Right to be angry, right to call him on his bullshit, right to just…walk away. 

_"I'm here. I'm right here, Sam." Dean doesn't even care what it looks like, what it 'says', his fingers locked around Sam's cooler ones as the Impala thunders through the night. "C'mon, stay with me now. Squeeze my hand, Sammy. Squeeze my hand."_

_The twitch of Sam's hand can barely be called a squeeze, but Dean'll take it, because Sam's a fighter, he's tough as nails and twice as stubborn and Dean's not going to lose him (again), he's not, he's not, he's not._

_The car smells like blood and Dean wishes suddenly that he was less intimately acquainted with that smell, the scent of **Winchester** blood in particular. The Impala—which has never been right since the semi—is starting to shimmy as he tromps the accelerator harder. Dean doesn't care. He's going to get them to that fucking hospital if he's got to run down Jesus Christ himself to do it._

_"I got you." He squeezes Sam's fingers back, not sure his words are really true, but unable to stop the run of them, as if he can lash Sam to him by a rope of words. "I got you, Sam, you're gonna be fine, you just hang on here with me…"_

_Sam makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a whimper, forehead pressed against the Impala's seat. The arm not claimed by Dean is wrapped around to cup his belly and breathlessly, Sam says, "I think…oh, fuck…" His voice thickens, roughens. "I think I'm losing the baby, Dean. I think I'm losing her."_

_"Don't say that. Don't you even think it, Sam." Fast as they're going and dark as it is, he can only spare a fast and jerking sidelong glance. Sam's body's shaking and Dean can't tell if it's the rattle of the car or Sam himself._

_Sam shakes his head. "She's going, I can feel it. Ah, God..." Sam's breath catches and then slides into another harsh moan. "Please hurry, Dean. Please."_

"Naw." Dean swallows past the thickness of his throat, harrumphs a little and tries to make his voice even out, sound a little less fucked. "Naw, it's just…" Dean sighs. "Is my Dad there?" Bobby doesn't answer right away and Dean's chest gets colder, tighter. "I… Do you think you can get a message to him? Please?"

"I can sure try."

Dean opens his mouth and for a second, the words won't come. Only this choking horribleness. His breath is shaky, uneven, and the metal surface of the payphone swims before his eyes, turning blurry and indistinct. "I… Sam…"

"It's all right, Dean. I think I get it."

"No." Dean never thought sounds like this could come out of his throat, but here comes the second wave—hot instead of cold—sweeping over him like a tsunami. "No, you don't get it. Sam lost the baby." Bobby doesn't say anything and Dean feels heat and crushing pressure pulp his heart and lungs in his chest. "You call that fucker up and you tell him that. Sam lost the baby. _Sam lost the fucking baby and he should have been here!_ He should've been here!" Dean's thighs are trembling and he thinks it's probably a good thing John's not in front of him right now. As it is, he bashes the receiver against the prongs again and again, more violent with every blow until the plastic shatters in his hand.

"Hey, hey, hey now!" A fairly burly guy in teal scrubs is advancing on Dean, hands held up somewhere between harmless and defensive. "I need you to calm down, man. Right now."

Dean just stares at him, broken receiver still held loosely in his hand. There's still violence in him, surging, seething, but he doesn't know what to do with it. This dude isn't anyone, nobody important, no one who deserves to have his face bashed in but Dean's not sure he's not spoiling for a fight anyway.

Except he promised Sam he wouldn't.

"Look, man, I get you're having a tough time right now, but this is a hospital. You can't just pitch a fit."

_I don't want you getting banned from the hospital, Dean. I need you to… Just don't, okay? Just don't._

"Yeah." Dean lets the receiver drop. It clatters and Dean walks away. Just…walks away.

Sam looks like he's sleeping when Dean returns to his room but his eyes open when Dean plops down in the chair at his bedside. Sam looks almost green under the ugly hospital lighting and his hair's oddly flat, as if it, too, doesn't have the energy for more. 

"Dean." Sam's mumbly and thick-voiced. He licks his lips and blinks, his movements slow and fuzzy.

"Yeah, I'm here."

Sam shifts and then winces.

"Are you in pain? Should I call the nurse?" Dean makes a move like he's going to cover Sam's limp hand with his own then stops, unsure. 

Sam blinks again. "No." His head rolls a little toward Dean. "I mean, yeah, but they can't give me anything stronger while…" Sam falters and Dean looks down. When he broke the phone, the plastic must have cut him. He thumbs the blood away sluggishly. "I'm fine," Sam finishes lamely.

"I know." Dean's agreement is automatic, though he doesn't really believe it. But they've parroted that lie back and forth to each other so many times Dean knows both sides of the script backwards and forwards.

"You don't have to stay here." Sam's fingers brush across the side of Dean's hand and then flinch away. 

Dean scoffs. "Where else am I gonna go?"

"Go home."

"So I can do what? I'm not leaving you alone…"

" _Dean._ " Sam's voice sharpens. He pushes himself a little more upright and winces again, louder this time. "I don't need you here, okay? Go home. I want you to go home."

"Sam—"

"I want you to go home," Sam repeats dully, stubbornly. "Go somewhere, Dean. I don't want…I don't want you hovering over me. You're driving me nuts. Just…go away for a while. Leave me alone."

_I should have never brought you out._

"Yeah," Dean draws back slowly. "Yeah, okay." He shoves the chair back from the bedside and gets to his feet. His body aches. He didn't notice it before, but he notices it now. He wonders if he's even got the juice to make it back to the cabin or whether he's going to fall asleep behind the wheel and end up in a fiery wreck. That should be a bothersome thought.

"And Dean?" Sam's voice catches him at the door.

"Yeah?" Dean doesn't turn. He doesn't want to see Sam's face. Not like this. Not now.

"When you're there? Clean off the other bed, okay?"

Dean takes a breath. It doesn't help. "Yeah, Sam. Sure thing."


	23. Magnet

Sam thinks he could be okay if Dean would just be okay. 

In fact, other than the almost intolerable pressure of having a very not-okay Dean all around him pretty much all the time, Sam would even venture to say he _is_ fine. In the scheme of all the things they've lost…

It's not that Sam doesn't know it's a big deal, losing a baby; of course he does. It's not that he doesn't feel anything about it. But if he didn't lie down and die over any of those other horrific losses, he's not going to start with this. 

Life doesn't stop. Life is just going to keep rolling on and if Sam's learned anything over the years, it's that you either keep rolling with it or you get crushed. So dead babies or not, Sam knows there's nothing else to do but to get on with things.

He just wishes someone had given Dean that memo.

Dean's gotten into the habit of either getting up before Sam—usually, because apparently, passing a dead fetus has a slow recovery time—or pretending to be asleep until after Sam gets up, which is just awkward and stupid and they don't talk about it.

They don't talk about a lot of things.

They don't talk about a lot of things and for once, Sam's not the one pushing to get it all out in the open. 

He's fine with that.

***

This is how it goes:

Sam wakes in the ugly blackness of pre-dawn, his empty belly cramping and twisting in dark, throbbing waves. He buries his face in pillows that still faintly smell like Dean and breathes—sobs—until it passes. If he's lucky, he falls asleep again. If not, then he'll lie unmoving until he's sick of his own inertia and then he'll scrape himself out of bed to start another day. 

Standing through his shower leaves him hot-limbed, light-headed and shaky. It's an effort to cut off the water and lower himself, dripping, to the narrow edge of the tub. His fingers curl tightly around the tub's lip as he breathes.

"Sam?" Dean taps twice, quietly.

"I'm fine." 

Some days he only sounds tired. Other days, annoyance bleeds through despite his best efforts. It's not Dean's fault, Sam knows that. Dean's only doing what Dean's always done. Which includes blaming himself enough for the two of them. Sam tries to be kind, to be mindful. It's not easy.

Dean makes sure that he eats. Sam feels sort of dimly grateful for this, since he's pretty sure he'd forget otherwise. It's not that there's anything wrong with him. He just gets preoccupied. 

They'd had to quit hunting. Or, Sam had and Dean—at Dad's command—had quit with him. But at some point, watching Dean go through the papers, red pen in hand, it occurred to Sam that while he might not be able to do the salt-and-burn part, it's far from the only part of hunting. 

Sam doesn't think he's as good as Ash, but Ash is gone, hunters always need more information and it helps fill up the long hours of nothing. 

Sam needs something to fill up the long hours of nothing.

In the last month or so, he's let his research lapse, preoccupied…preoccupied with other things. It's a relief to get back to it.

Dean brushes against Sam's arm when he gets up from the table. Sam flinches without meaning to; his heart bangs crazily in his chest and he doesn't know why. Or, rather, he doesn't know why every random touch between them has suddenly become fraught with panic and strangeness, as if his body doesn't even recognize Dean anymore. 

"Sorry," he mumbles to Dean's "Sorry" in return. They're both so fucking sorry.

Dean barely looks at him now. He'd thought that was true before, when he was only stuck on being a freak, but with the clarity of hindsight he knows it wasn't true before. Not like now. Not that he's any better. He sees Dean as a series of body-part snapshots: _Here_ is his arm—driving arm, tanned darker and more freckled—putting a plate of eggs and chilies (that Sam will barely pick at) in front of Sam. _Here_ is the back of Dean's neck, a smudge of engine grease or grime across the nape, bent as he works on yet another book of crosswords or Sudoku puzzles. Dean's legs, hairy and so surprisingly pale beneath the fraying edge of his towel, Dean's mouth, all its fullness stripped by the flat line it's set in. 

He sees Dean in pieces.

***

It's late.

It's late and he doesn't want to sleep but he can't stand to sit at the computer or sift through papers for any longer. 

He doesn't know where Dean is until Dean is _there_ , pressing in behind him, fingers curling around Sam's biceps, breath brushing goose bumps from the nape of Sam's neck. Sam shivers but doesn't try to pull away, a deep ache welling up in him. His eyes close. He wants lean back into it, into Dean, the way he used to with Jess, a lifetime ago. 

He wants to be still, to freeze here and feel nothing at all for as long as he can. Maybe forever.

"We can try again," Dean whispers.

Sam's eyes open on the darkness and his hands, half-lifted, fall back to his sides. "I don’t want to," he says and he marvels at how calm he sounds, how very calm.

( _Of course he's calm, why wouldn't he be calm, he's fine, just fine_ )

***

"I think you should go."

Dean pulls a face. "Yeah. Well. I don't."

Sam sighs and marks his place in the Langenkamp Grimoire before closing the pages. "Dean." He's conscious of the effort to look up, into Dean's eyes. The times he can, when he makes himself, he sees nothing but shadows there, hiding behind the green, darkening the spots of brown. He sees it. He just doesn't know how to do anything about it. "I'm not made of glass, okay? I'm fine. You can go to work." He rolls his eyes. "Jesus, I want you to go to work."

"I just don't think it's a good idea." Dean's eyes fidget away and his fingers scratch idly at Sam's papers. Sam grits his teeth and doesn't slap Dean's hands away. 

"Then what'd you bring it up for?" And he's trying, he really is, but he can't deal with Dean like this. It's too hard and it's too much and…and…he just _can't_ , all right? Because he's fine, he's _fine_ , but it's a thin fucking line and he's not going to get dragged off of it just because Dean's all fucked up with shit that wasn't his fault to begin with. "If you didn't want to go, why even tell me? Christ."

"I don’t know, all right?" Dean's jaw juts stubbornly, angrily and his crow's feet pinch tight. "I just…" He deflates and pushes away from Sam's rickety table-desk, scattering Sam's papers further. "I don’t know," Dean says, softer. "I just tell you stuff, you know?" Dean huffs, an almost-laugh. "Shit. S'not like there's anyone else."

Sam cools so fast he feels iced. He picks at the edge of the grimoire, head aching, body aching, all his molecules circling around that same freezing center of nothing. It feels like there should be strings—wires—coming from his wrists, his shoulders, his head; marionette strings that make him move, that unhinge the wood of his jaw enough to say, quietly, "I know. I know that."

"Sam—" Dean's tone makes Sam's whole body tighten until it hurts. He sighs and Dean's hand shoots out to pin Sam's to the book, squeezing brutally until Sam's eyes jerk up to his again. "You gotta stop this, man. I know…" Dean's face flickers through unnamed expressions and his voice falters unevenly, "I know it's bad, man. I get it. But…"

Sam feels like he's been pushed out of his skin and something else has taken his place, something cold and slithering. Except he knows from Cold River, from the showdown against the demon—it's not something else, it's him. The part of Sam Dean never lets himself acknowledge, never lets himself see, the part of Sam that's grown and flourished and thrived on a few droplets of inhuman blood.

He's cold, so cold as he leans forward, into Dean's space, Dean's face. He watches Dean's pupils dilate and struggle to focus. He watches Dean's mouth loosen, soften. 

_Pheromones. Nothing more than that._

"Are we sharing our _feelings_ now, Dean?" The edge in Sam's voice makes Dean blanch. Sam doesn't enjoy it. It doesn't feel good. But it does feel like relief, when Dean leaves the room without another word.

***

"Are you okay?"

Sam turns around and Dean is there. Sam's breath rushes out and the thick haze of confusion lifts a little, like suddenly being able to breathe. "Yeah," he says slowly, taking a step toward his brother. "I'm fine."

Dean's staring at him. Sam's neck prickles. "What?"

"Where is it?" Dean steps into him, latching onto Sam's jacket with both hands. "Christ, Sam, I leave you alone for two seconds… Where is it?"

"W-what…?" But dimly, he remembers. Dean had given him…something. Something important. Sam looks down at his hands. They're empty now. He turns in a slow, puzzled circle, but he can barely remember what he's looking for other than it's important and it's not here. 

"Dammit, Sam…"

He turns and walks through the doorway behind him into the darkness of the building beyond. It's cold, freezing the sweat to his back. Or maybe that's the fear; he shouldn't have forgotten. He shouldn't have lost it. 

He can barely see, stumbling over unseen debris. He bangs into strange angles in the walls or the walls themselves. In places, he goes to his knees and fumbles sightlessly across the ground, searching, searching.

_I'll find it, have to find it, where is it, need to find it, can't find it, fuckfuckfuck, where is it?_

Sam's head aches dully, dry throbs that are echoed by his sore fingertips, his knees, but he doesn't stop. He can't. He knows it's here somewhere, unprotected, lost. He knows, too and in the same way, that he and Dean are not alone in the chilly dankness. 

"Sam!" Dean's shout strikes echoes from the stone, confusing direction, confusing his senses. 

"Here!" he calls back, straightening. The sound of his brother's voice fills him, warmth and cold, cutting through his panic. "Dean!" Sam staggers to his feet, startled and scared by how much the cold has sunk into his limbs and how sluggishly they respond. 

"I found it!" A pinprick of gold sears into Sam's eyes. It's not particularly strong, but after the thick shadowed dimness, Sam's eyes prickle with tears and heat. He raises a hand against the light, blinking furiously. Dean sounds excited. "Sam, I found it."

Sam squints through his fingers. As Dean comes closer, Sam can make out his brother's features, the lamp held upraised in his left hand and the infant cradled close to his body on the right.

Liquid relief and icy foreboding clash in Sam like two storm fronts colliding; he takes a step backward, flattening his shoulders to the stone of the wall. 

"Here, take her, willya?"

Sam opens his mouth to protest, but Dean's already shoving the baby at him and Sam's choice is to take it or to let it drop…which is no real option at all. The baby gurgles and laughs like this is all great fun; she's so light in his hands, so warm.

He's so wrapped up in not fumbling the baby, in the weight of her, the sight, that Dean's voice startles him. "Try not to lose her this time, all right?"

Panic slices through him. "Wait—Dean, no!" He looks up, fast and jerky; Dean is already fading back into the darkness, the lamp left at Sam's feet. Sam stumbles over it when he steps toward Dean and he's distracted all over again by trying not to drop the baby. "Don't…you can't leave me with her!"

"'Course I can!" Dean's voice echoes back at him cheerfully. "You're the one, Sammy!"

"Dean!" Sam shoves the lamp out of his way with his foot, stumbling forward after Dean. "Dean, wait. Don't leave me. We can go together, wait, _goddamn it, **Dean**!_ "

His shouting makes the baby cry; tired, rasping and persistent. Sam's arm tightens around her, cradling her against his chest. He keeps stagger-stepping forward, though, trying to catch up with Dean, even though he knows it's too late and Dean is gone. 

He knows the same way he knows that—no matter how tightly he holds the baby, no matter how carefully he watches her—before too long, he'll lose her too. Again.

He always does.

"Sam. _Sam_." 

Sam lurches up but no further. Dean's hands are knotted in Sam's tee-shirt; it's his voice that called Sam up out of his dream—nightmare. It's not the first time. Sam makes a noise he flat-out refuses to call a whimper and Dean lets him go. 

"Sorry," Dean mutters, shifting a little away from Sam on the mattress, making it creak dryly. "Sorry. You were screaming your head off." 

"Yeah." It's the only word Sam can manage; his throat feels tight, raw. The points of his hair feel damp, clammy where they fall across his skin but it's too much an effort to try and shake them loose. 

"Yeah," Dean echoes back, uncertainly. The bunch of Dean's muscles—preparatory to getting up—telegraphs to Sam through the mattress. 

Like in the dream, Sam's hands move without his conscious thought and he lunges out to grab Dean's wrist. He wishes he could see his brother's face. He's so tired of the darkness. "Thank you."

"S'nothing." Dean's wrist turns in Sam's grip, mute request for release, but Sam doesn't let go. They sit like that for a minute, until Dean stops trying to pull away. Sam moves his thumb, lets it press against Dean's skin until he can feel the faint throb of Dean's pulse. 

It's not fair; Sam knows that. He hears Dean's breath change, roughen; he can feel tension coil, tighter and tighter, in Dean's body like just before a lightning strike. He should let Dean go, let him go back to his bed. The thought of sex… Well. He just can't think about sex. But Dean's been his brother—and protector—a lot longer than he's been Sam's sex partner and it doesn't seem fair that giving up one means he has to surrender it all. 

"Same dream?" Dean asks finally, gruffly. Sam opens his fingers and peels them away now that Dean's more or less settled, no longer trying to flee. 

"Yeah." Sam hasn't told Dean the content of his dreams but there's no way to disguise he's been having them. They're always the same. Over and over—Dean hands him the baby, Sam loses the baby, Sam searches until Dean finds him again. Over and over. Over and over.

"Y'all right?" Dean's hand flirt-skates over Sam's shoulder, down his arm. Sam shivers a little, not unpleasantly, before he shrugs.

"I'm fine." It's easy to say the words. They skate across the frozen lake of his heart effortlessly, a groove worn by repetition. A moment later, though, he thaws enough to venture, "Just… Would you stay up with me? For a little while?"

The sound of his own voice—whining, weak—makes Sam cringe. He used to be stronger than this. He remembers being stronger than this. When Jess died, he was so _angry_ , anger like an explosion, filling him up, pushing him forward. Now there's nothing. So much nothing he thinks it should echo. 

But Dean only says, "Yeah, sure," in the same offhand way he's used on Sam for years and ruffles Sam's hair.

***

Dean starts out in his own bed, but the nights that Sam has nightmares, more often than not, he ends up in Sam's. They don't fuck. They barely touch. That's not the point. The point is that with another person in the bed, Sam dreams less. It seems like a fair trade off and Dean never says otherwise.

Sam thinks it should make things better, easier. 

It doesn't.

Instead, it just reminds him how fucked up this all is; that he sleeps with Dean but doesn't fuck him, that Dean's presence can chase away demons—even inner ones—even so. _Normal_ , Dean had flung at him over and over again in the bad old days, right after Stanford, after Jess. _Normal_ , he'd said, like it was a curse or a swear word. But the truth is that Dean's always been the normal one and Sammy the freak and no amount of wishing otherwise is ever going to change that.

***

"Your next checkout's coming up," Dean whispers, not because it's late but because he's loathe to bring these things up. Sam knows—this is what he's done to Dean. "We're going to have to try again sometime."

Ire stirs sluggishly in him, a monster buried in mud. _You just want to get laid again_ , he thinks and shifts irritably on the bed. His fingernails bite into the meat of his palms. But it's not true and he knows it. Or it's _mostly_ not true, he amends mentally, because this is Dean. 

"I meant what I said before," he says, instead of snapping at Dean for only pointing out the obvious. "I don't want to try. I'm done trying."

His shoulders hunch against Dean's silence. Finally, voice neutral, Dean asks, "Then what are we going to do?"

 _We?_ Sam thinks, though he again has the good sense not to voice it. "I don't know. I don't care."

Dean's hand creeps onto Sam's hip, a closed fist rather than an open palm. "Sam. They'll reassign you."

Sam's jaw clenches so fast he feels the ache all the way into his shoulders. "I won't do it. I gave them my pound of flesh already."

 _Don't talk about her like that_. Dean said those words to him years ago, about someone else and under vastly different circumstances but they're thrown up from the shore of his memory to stab him yet again. Sam realizes his hand's crept down to flatten across his belly; he jerks it away.

"Sam—"

"No." He rolls over in a single swoop, mashing awkwardly into Dean before he can scoot back on his side of the bed. "I mean it, Dean. They can come and _find_ me. I won't… I'm not…" He can't make the words string together into sentences, the ache in his throat spreading down into his chest, pinching, crushing pressure. 

"Sam." Dean grabs Sam's shoulder, digging in and shaking Sam a little. "Okay, man. Okay. I… We'll figure something out. I got it. I got it."

He hasn't cried. Sam hasn't cried. Not once. There's been no reason to. 

( _He's fine_ )

And he's not crying now. But the thought of doing it again, going through this again… Not the sex, obviously, because Dean's as good as that as he is at anything else he puts his time and patience into. But the rest of it? 

If he concentrates, he remembers what it felt like: the horrible, liquid southward shift, the shifting peaks and hollows of pain, the flat, impassive faces of the nurses holding his arms when it was finally time to squat and expel what was left…what was left of _her_.

Sam turns his face into the spiritless linen of the pillow, gulping air and breathing raggedly. "Leave me alone, Dean," he mutters.

He hates that Dean doesn't even argue with him now; just pulls back, pulls away and leaves the bedroom entirely.

Sam buries his face deeper in the pillow and tries to remember how to breathe.

***

He started out calm. He knows he did. And he still _feels_ calm, though he guesses, looking at the mess of his hand, that that part's up for debate. 

Dean's banging on the door, the urgency of his voice rising, but Sam can't let him in, not yet, not yet, not finished yet. He can't see through all the blood, the edge of the razor snagging and digging and tugging horribly at where the metal joins the bone without actually digging free.

_…just a little bit more…_

The problem is that they can track him. Anywhere in the world, they can track him. And a Breeder on the run is a far worse offense than any of the petty crime he committed when he was just run-of-the-mill Sam Winchester.

_…come out, come **out** , dig you fucking out…_

He started with neat cuts—slices—like it was high school biology all over again but it’s the wrong hand and his ambidexterity doesn't extend to fine detail work. It looks kind of like hamburger now and it won't stop bleeding and the sink is a mess and isn't Dean going to pitch a fit about _that_ …

Sam squints, trying to see through the gore, trying to ignore the sound of his brother crashing through the splintery plywood of the door and then Dean is there and Jesus when did he get so strong and his arms are crushing Sam's down to his side and he's screaming and his eyes are burning and his hand is burning and Dean is saying _stop it stop it jesus fuck sammy what did you do what the hell did you do_

And Sam doesn't know. He just doesn't know.


	24. Mask

"Chris" shows up on Tuesday.

"Hey, I'm Chris. Friend of Sam's." 

"Chris" doesn't seem fazed, either by Dean's "Who the fuck are you?" or the rifle Dean's got at his side. Dean kind of hates him on sight.

"Yeah." Dean scoffs. "I think I know all of Sam's…"

And then Sam mashes Dean into the doorframe to get past him, onto the porch. "Hey. Chris."

"Sam." Chris's face—which Dean would have said was pretty at ease anyway, especially for a guy more or less at gunpoint—smoothes out even more. It's not recognition, exactly, Dean thinks, trying to peg down exactly what it _is_. If he had to transpose Chris's expression onto his own face, it'd be something like _yes, **finally**_ , which doesn't make any sense at all. But then Sam's loping down the steps and Chris is stepping up and then they're full on hugging and Dean feels his jaw unhinge a little and his eyes go wide. 

No. Dean definitely hates him.

Chris is tiny—at least in comparison to Sam, and who isn't—out of shape and the little patch of beard on his chin is just plain stupid. Under other circumstances, Dean might appreciate the eye-searing turquoise Hawaiian shirt Chris is wearing—mostly for its potential to irritate Sam—but it's limp and wrinkled…and even if it wasn't, it's still on "Chris".

Dean sidles up and kicks Sam sharply in the ankle.

"Ow!"

"Hey, Sam—gonna introduce your friend?" Dean can't help the edge in his voice but he tries to bury it under a smile. Neither Chris nor Sam look like they're fooled much. 

Sam still looks exhausted as he heaves a sigh. "Dean, this is my friend, Chris. Chris, this is my…" Sam falters and his extended hand—the bandaged one—twitches. "This is Dean."

Chris gives Dean the nod. "Hey."

"Hey." Chris's voice is stupid too, higher pitched than Dean would expect, but it won't kill Dean to be a little polite. Sam's got that worried look, the cringing one that says he thinks Dean's going to embarrass him, make a scene. And maybe if Sam wasn't so fucking _sad_ all the time, Dean might be a bigger ass about it. So he reaches out, shakes Chris's hand and doesn't even try to crush Chris's fingers. Dean nods at Chris's bag, slung over one shoulder. "You staying a while?"

Chris looks at Sam. Dean looks at Sam. Sam reaches for Chris's bag. "Yeah," Sam answers for him. "For a while, anyway. C'mon. I'll show you where to put your stuff."

Dean grabs the strap of the bag extended between Chris and Sam. "I'll do it." Sam looks at him, looks surprised, and Dean's shoulders hunch up. "He just got here." Dean looks at Chris. "You should catch up."

He still doesn't like Chris. Doesn't trust him, really. But he remembers St. Louis. 

Dean may not be as smart as Sam, but he doesn't forget the things he's learned. Not the important things. He remembers what it was like, what _Sam_ was like, with his friends. 

Dean's never really had friends. Or, rather, Sam was always his friend. But he can't fix Sam. Whatever it is that Sam needs, Dean can't give it to him. The last time that happened, Sam left. Dean doesn't really think Sam will leave this time…not for someplace like Stanford, anyway. But the gauze and tape covering Sam's fucked up hand remind him that there are a lot worse—a lot more _final_ —ways for Sam to go. 

He guesses Sam's figured it out for himself—that Dean's useless to him—and has called in his own cavalry. And maybe Chris can do what Dean so obviously can't. 

Doesn't mean Dean has to _like_ Chris, though.

"You got any other stuff?" he asks, nodding toward Chris's travel spattered SUV. 

"Yeah." Chris slings the keys to him; Dean fields them one-handed. "Just the one other bag. You sure? I can get it myself."

"Nah, it's fine." Dean grits his teeth and makes himself say it. "Just hope you don't mind sleeping on the couch."

Chris laughs. "Ah, hell, man. Couch is where I sleep half the time when I'm at home anyway."

Sam's just looking at Dean, a variation on the closed, uninformative look he's had for weeks. Since losing the baby. 

Just thinking the words still jabs at Dean, sharp and unhealed. He's glad for the excuse of Chris's luggage to turn away. 

In the normal run of things, he'd put Chris in the woodshed. But after Sam cut up his hand, Dean had called Bobby and pretty much begged him to come stay for a while, since Dean's too scared to leave Sam alone for any length of time. It felt itchy and uncomfortable taking his cap in hand like that after the way he blew up at Bobby before, but—as usual—Bobby took it all in stride. Dean guesses there's a history of Winchesters raging at him.

Thank God for Bobby.

Chris's truck is a sty, awash in old fast-food wrappers, disposable coffee cups and drink bottles. There's a baby seat buckled in the back and a multicolored plastic rattle in the foot well. Not that Dean was snooping or anything. He takes a peek at the guy's registration too, but it doesn't tell him anything more useful than Chris's address is in Orlando. Of course, that doesn't mean much, as Dean well knows. 

He doesn't find any hidden compartments or weapons and the guy's CD collection makes him want to gag. Also unsurprising, given that he's Sam's friend. Finally, Dean collects Chris's other bag and takes it into the house, dumping them next to the couch. He hopes there's something breakable inside.

* * * * *

"Whose car's that?" Bobby drops grocery bags helter-skelter on the table, startling Dean out of himself. He hadn't even heard Bobby's truck come up the drive.

Dean shrugs. "Don't know. Some friend of Sam's. Chris." He eyeballs the bags. "There any more to bring in?"

"Nah." Bobby sits down and sweeps his cap off his head, wiping the faint line of sweat from where it rested. The skin above is two or three shades lighter. Dean hops up and starts sorting through the food, shuttling it to the cabinets and fridge. 

"You hungry? I've got some chili going for dinner; it's still a little new, but it should be edible."

Dean hates Bobby's silences; he tries to drown it out by clattering cans and wrappers loudly. But eventually, all the groceries have been put away, he's stirred the chili a couple times and there's nothing else to do but turn around and face the music.

Bobby's fanning himself with his cap, looking relaxed except for the hawk-like sharpness of his faded eyes. Dean leans back against the sink and pretends not to squirm. "I never cottoned much to this idear of your dad's," Bobby says slowly. "Though not for the reasons you might be thinking."

"Yeah?" Dean's fingernails tap against the metal of the sink without rhythm. "The thought of two brothers getting in on doesn't turn your crank?"

Bobby rolls his eyes, unimpressed. Dean lives in fear—just a little bit—of what it would take to impress Bobby. "Point is, we both know that even before…all of this…" 

Dean addresses a small prayer to whoever's listening that Bobby went for the euphemism. There are some things he just doesn't want to hear coming from Bobby. It's too much like when his Dad took him aside for The Talk. 

"…way too involved with Sam."

Dean frowns. "Howzzat?"

Bobby's sigh is thick. "You're not stupid, Dean, whatever you like to pretend. I know you'd never've touched Sam if John hadn't told you to, God help you all." Bobby plants his hands on his knees, leaning forward. "But you've got a singular inability to see the forest for the _Sam_."

"What do you want me to do?" Dean looks down at his crossed ankles. There's paint on the toe of his left boot, splatters of nice gender-neutral cream. That's never going to buff out. "He's my brother."

"Whole world knows that, Dean," Bobby answers, equally quiet. 

Dean scratches the back of his neck. "I'm not sure what you're driving at there, Bobby."

Another sigh, just as heavy as the last. "Yeah, I know. Sorta the problem there, Dean." He claps his cap back on and gets up. He takes a couple steps toward Dean and squeezes his shoulder once. 

Dean doesn't really get why that should make him feel better.

But it does.

* * * * *

"Guess we got a full house, huh?"

Dean looks up from the laptop. The movement makes him realize his head hurts, thick dull throbs right in the center of his forehead. Bobby's got him trawling through property records, one of his least favorite activities. "Yeah, guess so."

Sam looks at Dean for a while like he was expecting some other answer. Then he sighs. "I told you about the internet group," he says, without any say-so from Dean. "The guys that were the first, the underground. Before Breeders were all that's left. Chris is one of those guys."

Dean blinks. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't that.

"This is the first time I've met him in person."

"Okay." Dean can't think of anything else to say but apparently 'okay' isn’t the right thing either— _so what else is new?_ —because irritation drifts across Sam's face like a shadow. He crosses the room to turn the other chair and drop into it, arms crossed over the chair's back. "Does he look familiar?"

Dean arches an eyebrow. "No. Should he?"

Sam shrugs. "Probably not." He looks away. "Probably not." He taps his fingers on the back of the chair. "So you're all right with this? Chris staying here for a while? Helping out?"

Dean questions what kind of 'help' "Chris" is going to be, but he shrugs anyway. "Your house too, man. You want your friends to come over, what'm I gonna say?"

"I don't mean that. I mean…" Sam sighs and shakes a hand through his hair. The hollows under his eyes are starting to look like bruises. "Hell, I don't know what I mean. Do we have a problem?"

"I don't know, do we?" He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what to say when Sam's looking at him like that, hangdog and expectant and fucking _breakable_ and it's killing him because he bets "Chris" knows what to say; he bets Chris is fucking _brilliant_ at knowing the right thing to say and all Dean's managing to do is piss them both off.

"Look," he says, barging over whatever Sam's going to say. "Do you trust this guy?"

Sam's mouth shuts with a noise like a carriage horse's hoof striking pavement and his eyes widen in a way that might look comical in other circumstances. Then Dean watches him actually consider the question. "Yeah," he says finally. "Chris… He's been through his own shit, you know? Not like us; nothing supernatural, but… Yeah."

Dean spreads his hands. "Then that's all I need to know."

Sam's face pinches up and he pushes himself off the chair, blanching only a little when he forgets and uses his fucked up hand. "Since when?"

He huffs out and Dean waits until Sam's all the way gone before he lets his head thunk down onto the surface of the table.

* * * * *

"Hey."

Dean looks up again and realizes it's much later than last time. There's no daylight streaming in from the windows behind him. In fact, there's no light at all, other than the bluish glow of the laptop screen and Dean's eyes are dry and aching. "Hey."

Sam's quieter than last time, arms wrapped around his ribs and pulled in on himself. He gets like this at night. If he's still pissed, it doesn't show. "There's food, if you're hungry."

Dean groans. "Ah, hell. I forgot about the chili." His back is aching too and Dean raises his arms over his head to stretch, feeling the vertebrae pop. He thinks this is probably the longest he's ever sat still in his life and he wonders what's happening to him. He's not the guy he used to be, the guy he always thought he was.

"It's fine," Sam says quickly. "I know I'm not good for much, but I can still manage to stir and turn a crock pot off. If you want, I'll bring you some."

"Nah, I'll get it myself."

"It's no trouble. I don't mind."

"Where's Chris?" Sam's eyes narrow at the question, but Dean presses on anyway. "I thought you guys would wanna hang out."

Sam's shrug is curt as his voice. "He had a long drive. He was pretty tired."

"He drove all the way from Orlando? Seriously? Why didn't he just fly?"

Sam smiles. It looks good on him. Even Dean's dick thinks so. "Are _you_ seriously asking me that question?"

"Plenty of people like flying just fine."

"Yeah, well, Chris doesn't." Sam uncrosses his legs and arms and comes to sprawl on the floor near Dean's chair. "Maybe you guys can bond over that."

Dean huffs a short laugh. "Yeah, I don't think me and "Chris" are going to be bonding over anything at all."

"Why do you say his name like that?"

"Like what?"

Sam rolls his eyes. "Like 'Chris, if that _really is_ your real name'." His imitation of Dean's voice is totally lame but that's nothing new.

"Whatever." Dean floats his gaze around the room. "I do not."

"You're so full of shit, Dean."

"You look tired. Maybe you should catch some sleep yourself." Dean rubs his eyes and then starts closing documents and browser tabs so he can shut down the laptop.

"I am tired," Sam admits. "Who knew talking was so tiring?" He tilts his head and looks at Dean from under the fringe of his hair. "You coming?"

Dean shrugs. "I don't know. Still got stuff to do." He doesn't, really, but he also doesn't feel like watching Sam crawl into the other bed and then lying there until his brain finally surrenders to unconsciousness.

"Can't it wait?"

Sam sounds impatient, scrambling up at the same time Dean hauls his aching bones out of the chair. "Jesus, Sam," Dean complains, closing the laptop lid with a quiet click, "what kind of bug crawled up your…"

He turns around and Sam is _right there_ , looming every one of the four inches he's got on Dean in height and radiating a gentle heat that goes straight to Dean's belly and cock. And… _oh_.

"Can't it wait?" Sam asks again, huskier, and then he's grabbing Dean and pulling him closer and then he's kissing Dean, hard, graceless and frantic and…yes. And yes. And _yes_.

Dean can't think above the rumble of his heart and the throb of his cock as they tumble to the floor in a barely controlled heap. Dean barks his elbow so hard his arm goes numb, but he doesn't drag his mouth from Sam's, greedy, starving, giddy with want. 

Sam tears at Dean's pants and his own, pushing jeans and shorts just far enough down for the two of them to grind together, skin to skin. The friction makes them moan into each other's mouths, muffled by shifting lips and tongues. Sam's hard as a poker against him and Dean feels like he could hammer nails through brick himself. He's pent up enough that it's an effort to not come from just this—just the slur and slide of skin and Sam against him.

Dean's hands skim down Sam's sides, absently counting ribs, until he reaches the slight spread of Sam's hips, bone and muscle. He thumbs the bone, tracing its curves, and then slips back, to grab Sam's ass and pull him down more firmly, make the friction better.

Sam makes a noise in his throat. Then he's tearing his mouth away from Dean's and twisting in Dean's grip. "Wait, no, no, no…" His eyes are closed as he pulls back stiffly onto his hands and knees, hovering over Dean instead of on him. "I can't. Fuck. I'm sorry, Dean, I can't."

"Yeah," Dean says, ignoring the way his hips keep writhing in small circles, ignoring the ache in his bones and groin. "Sure, Sam. Fine."

"I'm sorry." Sam rolls to the side. The tandem suck and blow of their breath seems very loud. "Dean…I'm so sorry. I just…"

"Sam," he says patiently, his voice sounding as calm and distant as he could want. "Could you just… Just leave me alone, okay?"

Sam sucks in a sharp breath. Dean doesn't—can't—look, everything that's _not_ calm in him just waiting for the slightest crack. He's thankful Sam doesn't apologize again; just scrambles up and goes, soft footfalls that thud through the floor. 

Dean's cock _hurts_ , not even vaguely pleasurable anymore and that's a metaphor even Dean understands. He takes his dick in hand and brings himself off with savage efficiency, the orgasm hitting like a brick wall. It doesn't feel good.

It doesn't feel like anything at all.

* * * * *

Dean expects Sam to avoid him the next day and Sam doesn't disappoint him. He sticks close to Chris's side. Dean has to give it to Chris; he makes Sam laugh.

Dean still hates him. 

Dean stays out of their way as much as he can, tinkering with the Impala, throwing knives at the stump targets he and John set up before John left. He volunteers to make the grocery run; four people—four _men_ —consuming a lot more food a lot faster than when it was just the two of them. When it's unavoidable, Dean watches Sam's eyes slink at him guiltily and then flick away. 

Dean doesn't know if he wants to shake the shit out of Sam or what, if he's so stupid to think that everything about them boils down to whether Sam's having sex with him or not. At the same time, watching Sam relax and joke under Chris's attention, Dean feels something ease up in him too.

* * * * *

"C'mere," Chris says. 

What 'c'mere' apparently means in Chris-speak, is 'let's go to the bar'. Dean doesn't really have the least speck of desire to go anywhere with Chris, but the little shits more persuasive than Dean gave him credit for. Bobby's still at the house to keep an eye on Sam and Sam insists he'll be fine, with a puppy dog look on his face that says: _Make this work, Dean._

So Dean sucks it up and takes Chris to the bar.

For a while, they just make the same bullshit small talk that guys make; dogs and cars, bad drunks and good ones, food and family. Chris isn't as good at pool as Dean, but Dean's willing to bet Chris's family never depended on Chris's talent, either. Chris holds his own.

"I had…have somebody." Chris says finally and the tone of his voice and the look on his face tell Dean they're getting to the sharing and caring part of the night.

"Is it had or is it have?"

Chris grimaces. "I don't know, really. We… I… I don’t know. We got kind of fucked up." His fingernails are painted in chipping black polish and he scratches at the label with the ragged edges. "Kinda like you and Sam, actually."

"Yeah?" Dean raises his eyebrows.

"We…we had a baby. A girl." Chris looks up and his eyes are angry, dangerous, filled with a rage that Dean recognizes intimately. Some of it's directed at Dean and some of it's not. " _Before_ the Plague."

"Ah."

"'Ah'? That's all you got to say? Ah?"

What else is there to say? "Would you believe me if I said I was sorry?" Dean snorts into his beer before he lifts the neck the rest of the way to his lips. His mom might have been 'spared'—and isn't that a fucking laugh—but Dean had lost plenty of his own, starting with Ellen and Jo.

Chris's lips twist. "Nah, probably not."

Dean nods. "Yeah. Well. I am sorry, though."

Chris nods tiredly in return, still fucking with the now-loose edge of his bottle's label. "Is it true what Sam said? That…that a demon did this?" Again he looks at Dean with crazy-angry eyes and again Dean's torn by that weird sense of deja-vu. "That the plague was caused by a demon?"

Dean settles back in his chair, filled by something he can't even put a name to, like a swirl of burning paper in his torso. "What makes you say that?"

"I didn't say that. Sam said that."

"Yeah, well, Sam's half out of his mind with grief, in case you hadn’t noticed. I wouldn't take anything he says too seriously."

"Don't. Don't do that, man." Chris's mouth gets stubborn, hard and so do his eyes. "I lost just about everybody I had in the whole world—my mom, my sisters, my kid… And I didn't have a whole lot to begin with."

"And you think it's going to make you feel better?" Dean leans across the table. 

"To know that they died _because_ of something, instead of random fucking chance? Yeah. That's going to make me feel better. And _fuck you_. Fuck you for asking." His tone is mild, but his expression is anything but. "Did Sam tell you what set him off?" Chris makes a vague whirly gesture with the hand not holding his beer.

"No." The single word comes out clipped despite Dean's best intentions as he falls back into the circular rut of worry and anger. It doesn't surprise Dean that Sam told Chris; seems like Sam's always looking for someone else to trust—someone emphatically _not Dean_. 

But it still hurts. 

Bugs him some, too, the way Chris keeps looking at him; like he knows something about Dean. Like he _knows_ Dean. 

They eyeball each other a couple seconds before Chris shrugs and takes another deep swig of his beer, closing his eyes as he does it; tactical surrender. His gasp is deep and appreciative when he sets the bottle back on the table and he blinks a few times at Dean before he goes on. "Text message. From…from your Dad? The guy that raised you guys. John? _Do you feel better for knowing?_ "

Dean's belly tightens so fast that he thinks for a moment Chris sucker-punched him under the table. "What?"

"Yeah." Chris's tone sounds as flat as Dean's. "It said: 'I heard about the baby. I'm sorry.'"

Dean's ring clacks loudly against the bottle as his hand fists; Chris's eyes flicker and Dean wonders what his expression looks like from the outside. The low-burn of alcohol fans hotter through his gut, liquid and dangerous as napalm.

"Sam said…" Chris rolls his longneck between his short palms briefly before he sighs and slumps a little in his chair. "Look, man. I gotta tell you, I suck at this whole moral support thing. Especially when I don't know you from Adam."

"He—John—he had a hard time with it. Us," Dean says, cutting Chris off tersely. "He raised us like brothers and here we are, not acting like it."

Behind the words: _I'll kill him. I'll fucking kill him._

"Yeah." Chris swirls the beer in the bottle, head cocked a little to the side like he's listening to music in another room. "That's kind of a mindfuck, though, right? Don't get me wrong…Sam's totally hot. But it's still sorta like incest, isn't it? Just a little."

Dean grimaces, his beer sourer than it was a moment before. "Yeah, I guess."

Chris holds up his hands. "Hey, I'm not trying to yank your chain or anything. I'm just saying."

"Whatever." Dean shakes his head. "It doesn't matter."

"No—hey. Sam really loves you, man. Like…the whole hearts and flowers and fat little babies in diapers."

Dean snorts into his beer, producing a sweet, flutelike sound from the bottle. Chris looks at him like he's a dope. Dean throws his head back and gulps the rest of his beer down in three long, thick swallows. It doesn't cool or relieve the plugged concrete feeling in his chest. He sets the bottle down unsteadily and it wobbles on its base for a while. "Excuse me, will you?"

Chris's expression makes Dean think Chris knows exactly what Dean's going to do but it doesn't matter. Chris waves a hand. "Yeah, sure."

His legs feel stiff as he exits the bar, gravel crunching under his feet. Dean's fingers feel like they belong to someone else as he dials the number. His jaw aches so hard he doesn't know how he's going to manage to get the words out.

_I heard about the baby. I'm sorry._

_Sorry?_ Dean thinks. _Sorry? I'll make you fucking sorry._

He doesn't really expect his father to answer. He hasn't answered any calls for months now. But the line clicks open on the third ring and instead of the awkward monotone of his father's voice mail message, he hears, "Dean?"

The sound of his father's voice—the _concern_ in it—only pushes Dean's blood pressure higher, hammering in his temples, hissing in his ears.

"Is something wrong? Is it Sam?"

"No. Shut up. I don't want you to say anything." Dean's fingers are so taut around his cell, he half-expects the plastic to crack. "Don't call him. Don't call him, text him…don't talk to him in any way, shape or form, or I swear to God, Dad, I'll make you regret it."

"Dean—"

Dean hangs up. He's panting, deep, heaving bellows like at the end of a long, hard run. He stands there for several moments, phone clenched in his hand. Then he smashes it against the bar's brick wall, scraping his fingers and fingernails. One time, two times and then he drops it into the dirt, stomping it under his boots until its fragments and shards. 

His hand is bleeding. Dean wraps his handkerchief around the cut and goes back inside. Chris looks up from his beer. "Everything all right?" Chris asks, sounding cautious.

Dean's faked his smile too many times and under much sketchier circumstances to be fazed now. "Yeah. It's fine."

Chris gives him the nod. "Good."

* * * * *

Dean's asleep when Sam crowds into the bed with him. This is new, but he starts to push over gamely, still fuzzy and out of it, right up until Sam swarms on top of him. Dean's not ready for it and Sam weighs a ton; the breath huffs out of Dean and his eyes pop wide in a hurry. He doesn't get the chance to get his breath back, either, as Sam's mouth slithers warmly over his. 

Dean makes an undignified noise that he totally blames on being startled awake and his hands skid over Sam's naked skin.

 _Naked skin_ , his mind says again, in case he missed it the first time, and his fingers close tight. Sam moans into Dean's mouth, his hands roaming Dean's body in return. It's been such a long time and Dean's been aching for it; he's about two seconds from flipping Sam and driving his dick home.

Dean gropes and flails to put enough airspace between them to gasp, "Sammy… Sammy…"

Sam looks gangling and awkward, but the truth is he'd never have survived this long if that was really true. He wriggles and slides against Dean more firmly, already beginning to sweat. "No," he answers, barely lifting his lips from Dean's long enough to form the words. "Don't talk." He tilts his head to bite Dean's throat, sharp and savage. It's Dean's bulletproof kink and Sam fucking well knows it; Dean's cock twitches and his blood ignites like gasoline. "Just wanna fuck. Just fuck me, all right?" Sam's tongue laps against the wound his teeth left, hot and slick, before he clamps down again. "Hard. Want it hard."

"Sam…" Dean breathes out his brother's name hopelessly and then surrenders, reaching up to tangle his fingers in Sam's hair and dig in. Sam's answer is wordless and unsteady, head lifting to meet Dean in a hard, devouring kiss. 

Dean doesn't care any more if this is wrong, if Sam is only throwing him a bone, if this is just going to fuck them both up worse…he just wants it. He just wants Sam. 

And maybe that's all there ever was.

Dean eases Sam over onto his back, Sam's hands alternately caressing and clutching. Their hips grind together and Dean can feel it from his cock down every nerve ending in his spine. He reaches for the lube. 

"Wait."

Dean pauses, arm extended, fingers brushing against the tube inside the opened drawer. It's useless to turn his head back to Sam but he does it anyway. "What?"

"Do… You got condoms?"

It's too dark to see Sam's expression. Dean isn't sure he wants to, even, because then he might not go through with this and he thinks they need it. Dean's a firm believer in the power of therapeutic fucking. "Yeah," he rumbles back. He fishes the lube out of the drawer and drops it on the table top and then dives back in for the old, battered—unused—box of rubbers. 

Sam sits up too when Dean pulls back on his knees; he strips the condom from Dean's fingers and reaches between Dean's legs, hefting his cock in long, warm fingers. Dean's stutter forward, fucking into Sam's grip on him. "Sam—"

His cock aches and throbs, all the way down into his balls. He's not going to last long, especially with Sam touching him like this.

"Just this." Sam's tone prohibits any further argument as he rolls the latex down over Dean. "Okay?"

"Okay." Dean eases the lube inside Sam with shaking fingers while his mouth and free hand rove across his brother's skin. Sam's trembling, even as he writhes and shifts under Dean. Dean doesn't claim to have the inside track to Sam's freaky brain, but he doesn't really have to, to feel Sam's fear mixed in with the want. 

"Shhh." Dean's wasn't like this with girls; the girls he fucked didn't ask for or require any kind of tenderness from him. Which he guesses is a good thing, because he didn't have much of it to give. But as he presses into Sam, he finds himself babbling, "…so good, Sammy, Jesus fuck, you feel so fucking good…" in a cracked out, hoarse fucked up voice he doesn't even recognize, sliding slow and easy and trying to make it good. For Sam.

Sam holds onto him so close, so tight that Dean can hardly breathe, saying Dean's name over and over again, starting out deep and then slip-moaning into high when Dean sinks all the way home. His hips push up into every stroke and his cock feels like iron between them, new-forged and hot.

It doesn't take long. It doesn't last long, and Dean's only grateful that Sam comes first, more by coincidence than design. "Love you, Sammy," he blurts out when his own orgasm overtakes him, spilling him out. "God. Fuck. Damn. Love you so fucking _much_."

He wants to blame it on the sex. Hey, no man can be taken seriously when his brains squirting out his Johnson, right? But he knows it's not true. And now he's got a whole new dimension of fucked up to add to the list, because their Dad was right—it shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't feel like _good_ and _safe_ and _home_ to be here like this, with Sam.

Except that's pretty close to how it's always been.

Sam's always useless after he comes, but Dean feels him smile, and feeling it, something inside him shatters like brittle glass. One of Sam's hands comes up to fiddle sloppily and aimlessly across Dean's hair, his face and he mumbles something deep and rumbling that Dean can't even understand…except he does. Because when neither one of them is walking around with their heads up their asses, they _get_ each other that way.

_Love you too, man._

Dean lets his breath sigh out and eases over onto his back. Not that there's a whole lot of room with Sam taking up most of it, but Dean guesses it doesn't matter. He'll cool down and get up and go back to his own bed in a few.

It occurs to him a moment later that _this_ is his bed and Sam's the trespasser here, but Dean already knows he doesn't have the heart or the energy to budge him. Whatever. Doesn't matter.

He's got maybe another five seconds to think about that before Sam stirs, turning over to throw an arm, a leg and about half of the rest of his body over Dean's. Dean's stomach sucks in like he thinks he can somehow avoid Sam by doing it, like it's an accident. Sam nuzzles uselessly at Dean's shoulder for several seconds, clearly about two-thirds to conked out.

Then: "Dean?"

Only years of experience tell him that Sam's mumble is his name, slurred out against Dean's skin. "Yeah?"

"We s'hd get rid of t'othr bed." Another sinuous, sleepy slither and most of Sam's resting on top of Dean, Sam's face pushing persistently into the space between Dean's neck and shoulder. "More _space_ " A pause and the quasi-ticklish movement of Sam's lips across Dean's skin. "D'nt need it. Dn't _want_ it."

Dean feels really still inside, immobile, but he becomes aware that his arm has somehow crept around Sam and his fingers are stroking soothing messages of rest and sleep down his brother's spine. _It's okay, Sam. I'm right here._ "Yeah, Sam," he says finally. "Okay."


	25. Murmur

Dean wakes and knows—without a second of doubt or disorientation—that the body curled around his, that the arm thrown over his waist, that the knee pushed between his, is Sam's. He's motionless, eyes still closed, as if—by pretending to sleep—he can spin this moment, this feeling, out indefinitely and never have to face the part where he can't have this. Where he can't even admit to wanting it.

It doesn't take long for memory to filter back; Sam crawling in with him, the desperate urgency of their sex and Sam…Sam in the aftermath, cuddling and curling up to him, warm, sweet and sleepy. It would feel like a dream except for the reality of Sam plastered against his back, breathing softly into the hollow between Dean's shoulder and jaw.

Dean wonders how long they can stay like this, how long Sam will stay sleeping when Sam startles him by asking, "Do you ever think about her?"

Sam's tone is quiet and there's no need to ask who he means. Dean wants to say something silly, something funny, except there's nothing funny about it and he can't make fun of this. Finally, there's something he can't mock. Angels will weep. "All the time."

Sam's arm pulls tight, snugging the two of them more tightly together. Dean wonders when it stopped being an annoyance and started being a turn-on that his little brother can manhandle him. He decides it doesn't matter.

"In the hospital…" Sam starts and then falters. He wouldn't let Dean be there at the end and they haven't talked about it. They haven't talked about anything. "I made them let me see. After. _After,_ you know?"

"Yeah. I know."

"I just… It was going to be the last time." Sam's voice is shaking. _Sam_ is shaking, delicate little trembles that bleed into Dean. Dean's glad they're not face to face. He doesn't want to see Sam's face, doesn't want Sam to see his. "But it was like nothing." Sam's tone turns ugly and flat. "It was just a dead…thing. I didn't cry. I didn't feel anything. I wanted to. I tried. But I just didn't."

Dean doesn't know what to say to that. Jesus, what _can_ he say? But when Sam pushes closer to him again, hides his face in the nape of Dean's neck, Dean leans back into him, offering the only thing he's ever had to put between Sam and the world. 

"What's wrong with me, that I can feel like that?" Sam whispers. 

"Sam—"

"No. No." Sam pulls away and Dean falls into the space he vacates. Sam finishes the gesture by swinging his leg over Dean and shifting to straddle him. It's not sexual; Sam sits across Dean's knees, not his groin, and his fingers wind around Dean's wrists, forcing them up and pinning them to the mattress. "I don't want… That wasn't what I wanted to say."

Dean hates this seriousness. It's too much, all the time. He wants to be able to put the goofball smile back on Sam's face. He wants them to be able to joke. He wants this _easier_. Except nothing ever gets any easier. Not with Winchesters. 

"I miss you," Sam says, looking down at him. Dean feels his eyes widen; he turns his face fast, sweeping his eyelashes down to hide it. Sam's fingers close harder around the bone. Not painful; just enough to tell Dean Sam's paying attention. "I'm scared, Dean. I don't think… I don't know if I can go through that again. I just…"

"I know that, Sam." His throat feels so dry; it comes out croaking and pinched. Dean's tongue works, trying to summon spit. He might as well be trying to do magic. 

_"But I like us like this,"_ Sam insists, pressing Dean deeper into the bed. "I'm gonna be twenty-five and you're almost thirty and _there are no more girls alive in the world anymore_. And maybe it should be somebody else, but it isn't. It just isn't."

"This is so fucked up." Dean licks his lips and it's like sandpaper.

"Yeah. It is." Sam's agreement is ruthless, no room for bullshit. "But do you want me? I'm good with the government right now. I conceived once; they'll give us time and maybe… I don't know. But do you want me?" Sam's talking faster now, the words skidding over each other. "'Cause I'm thinking… I keep remembering when I was little. I used to sleep with you all the time."

Aw, Jeez. Dean squirms, not that it does him a whole lot of good with Sam right on top of him like this. But does the kid have to bring _that_ up? When they're all _naked_ and shit?

"I used to sleep with you all the time," Sam repeats, bouncing a little for emphasis. "And I used to feel _safe_ , Dean. And I… I sorta forgot that for a while in the middle, but I remember now. I remember."

Dean turns his head, looks Sam dead in the eyes. It kills that Sam can look so serious about this, about _them_ , like it matters, like they matter. There's just something so backwards about that. Dean doesn't even know where to start. "What do you want me to say, Sam?" It comes out so thin, so _cold_ ; Sam flinches but doesn't let go and Dean wants to explain and doesn't know how.

"Stop bullshitting. Tell me something that's the truth. Tell me something real."

Dean makes a noise in his throat, half-strangled, and gapes at his brother. 

"I miss you." Sam's eyes search Dean's face, looking for God only knows what. His thumbs caress the inside of Dean's wrists. "I miss sleeping with you, I miss fucking you, but you gotta tell me something, Dean. You gotta."

Dean doesn't even know why they're fighting about this. Maybe just because they're geared up to it, too many years of arguing and snapping and circling around each other like dogs. Maybe because, in spite of everything, they don't know each other as well as they pretend to. As much as they like to believe. 

"I jerk off thinking about you," Dean admits in a voice barely above a cricket's creak and it's not _I miss you_ or anything particularly romantic, but no one's ever accused Dean of being a romantic. 

And it's the truth.

Sam's eyes close briefly and _there_ is the smile Dean wanted from him, easy as anything. "Okay," he breathes. "Okay." He leans down, mouth hovering over Dean's. "We've got time."

Sam closes the gap.

* * * * *

It's later than Sam wants when he finally crawls out of bed and into the shower. He still feels tired—lately, he's always tired—but he's also filled with twitchy restlessness and a thicker, golden elation that even the lukewarm rain of the shower can't disperse.

It's…different. It's new, a little bit like waking up.

Dean's sleeping. When he was little and the two of them slept together more often than not, Sam would wake first (because Dean's never been a morning person) and watch Dean sleep, not wanting to disturb that feeling of being protected. Later, with Jess, he'd do the same thing, except he felt like the protector as much as the protected, no longer a frightened child. It feels strange to have it come full circle like this again, opening his eyes to his brother's face, possessed by that same feeling of _it'll be okay._

It's been a long time since Sam thought _anything_ was going to be okay. 

Sam's glad Dean's sleeping. He hasn't slept enough and Sam knows it's his fault. So much of this is his fault. But what he said to Dean was true; they have time. Sam sighs and drag-asses down the hallway, combing his fingers through his wet hair so it dries faster. He hasn't thought about Chris—hasn't remembered—until he hears the clink and slurp of eating from the kitchen. 

Chris is eating cereal. Sam gives him a sheepish and rueful grin and Chris shows him milky teeth and half-masticated bran. Surprisingly, it only makes Sam feel hungry. 

"So," Chris says indistinctly, as Sam wanders over to the cabinet to get another bowl. "Sounds like you and Dean are doing all right."

Sam heats, a flush that rolls from his belly all the way up to his hairline and then spreads. He sets the bowl—and spoon—on the table with a louder clink of wood-glass-and metal than he intends. "You…um. Heard that?"

Chris rolls his eyes. "It's not actually a large cabin, you know? And calling the walls paper thin is kind of an insult to paper." Sam doesn't know what exactly his expression looks like, but Chris holds up his hands in parody of harmlessness. "Not everything," he admits finally. "Just when you were…loud."

"Oh, God." Sam rakes a hand through his hair and wonders if he can spontaneously combust in his chair and if he does, would it actually be part of the Winchester Curse or not. 

"Sam. I lived in ridiculously close quarters with four other guys for…" Chris's fingers make little calculation wiggles, "…way too many years of my life. I've heard the sex noises before. Hell, sometimes, if I was _really lucky_ , I got to make the sex noises. It's no big deal."

"Yeah…" Sam agrees doubtfully. "Just…could we not tell Dean?"

Chris rolls his eyes again. "I'm just saying…sounds like you guys are starting to work things out."

Sam chews his thumbnail absently as he pours cereal into his bowl. "Yeah, I don't know." Somehow _I jerk off thinking about you_ doesn't seem like it's going to go down in anyone's books as a sterling example of how to declare your love, except that it _is_ Dean and thus the metaphorical equivalent of balconies and moonlight and roses. 

Sam's willing to take what he can get.

He winces when he sits. It's been a while and twice less than eight hours—especially as frantic as they'd both been—has left him feeling nicely well-fucked, but sore. Chris snorts into his cereal. "That doesn't look much like an 'I don't know' ass-wiggle, there, stud," Chris comments blandly.

"Shut up." Sam kicks him under the table.

"Ow! Hey!" Chris leans down and rubs his shin. "That's it, go ahead and pick on the little guy!" He jabs back with one foot. 

Little or not, Chris has a kick like a mule and Sam decides discretion is the better part of valor and goes back to his cereal. 

It's strange having Chris here. Strange-weird and strangely peaceful at the same time. He and Dean have been bouncing off no one but each other for long enough that it felt like there were down to nothing but bone on bone. It's uncomfortable to add new people to the equation, whether it's Bobby or Chris, but at the same time, they're a buffer, providing some space that he and Dean _badly_ needed.

_You are in love with your older brother,_ he thinks, probing the thought like a bruise or a rotten tooth. 

Sam can't remember the last time he just had a _friend_ ; someone who wasn't a part of his shadow world, someone that doesn't know Latin, that doesn't carry holy water or even chalk, just as a matter of course. 

At the same time, Chris is one of only a handful of _others_ that he knows, men like him, men that are something both more and less than men. He doesn't socialize with other Breeders, doesn't even know any the others that he sees on his visits to and from the Center. Their appointments are carefully staggered—different buildings, different doctors—and it's not like the Centers are a hot party spot, anyway. He sees their faces—enough to recognize them, month to month—but he doesn't know them. They're not friends.

He knew Chris before losing the baby; Sam had years of following the clandestine trails of those who really don't want to be found, both online and off, and he'd had questions. God, so many questions. 

"Thank you," Sam says belatedly and Chris looks up at him, eyebrows peaked. Sam gestures with his spoon, dripping milk. "For coming. I wasn't going to ask. I _didn't_ ask, and you came anyway."

Something in Chris's eyes goes dark, the way it does when he talks about Lance or their daughter, Bernadette. "Don't, okay?" He breathes out like he's been running, leaning and slumping back in his chair and combing both hands through his hair until it stands up like he's been electrified. "Just…don't."

Sam nods because he knows that, gets that too. Winchesters aren't the only ones to play these games, dance these dances. "Yeah, okay. Just…" Chris groans in protest and Sam smacks him on the knuckles with his spoon, the same as he'd do if it was Dean. "No," Sam says over him, sighing to himself. "I just…is this going to fuck you up, coming here?"

There's no Breeder tattoo on Chris's hand, no bio-silicate implant welded to his bone. Sam's own hand flexes in what he has to label as quasi-jealousy, stitches pulling, the itch and ache of healing flesh. 

Chris makes a grumbling, scoffing noise in his throat, rolling his eyes and locking his fingers together over the top of his head. "You think I'd really come here if it was gonna be a problem?"

Sam looks at him. "Yeah," he answers flatly. "You would."

The internet isn't a great media to get to know someone. Not inherently. It's too easy to bullshit, to build façades and fakements, false personas far more comprehensive than 'Bikini Inspector'. But he and Chris came to it for much the same reasons: first, the bodies that had betrayed them and then, later, the children they'd lost. There's a sameness to their stories that brought them here, to this. 

So, although there are ways he doesn't feel like he knows Chris at all and that they're all but strangers to each other, it still hurts when Chris's face twists and he answers, "Yeah, well…maybe. But it's not like I have much to lose, right?"

Sam shoves his bowl away, appetite soured. "There's always something else to lose, man."

He's got medical checkout again tomorrow and he really doesn't want to think about it. Dean—and later, Bobby—did the best they could, but there's no way to hide the fact that Sam tried to carve his own hand up like a Christmas turkey. He'd told Dean that they have time and he thinks—he _thinks_ —that they do, that he can argue for his successful conception as a sign of…something. But the truth is that he doesn't know what they'll do or what this will do to his deal with Henricksen. 

The year after his dad died (but before he came back to them) had been an all-new lesson in rootlessness, in flying by less than the seat of your pants with no safety net at all. Sam hadn't even able to hate it, the way he did when he was a kid. There was too much terror for that, all the time, filling every waking moment like slow drowning. He had learned you could survive it, though. 

Sam wiggles his hand again, sharp prickles and dull throbs. 

You can always survive more than you think you can.

* * * * *

"I can't leave him," Dean says, when Bobby finally notices he's there and looks up at him. "I can't. He's my brother. He's more than my brother."

Bobby sighs and flips the ribbon bookmark from the rear of his book between the pages he was reading. He gestures Dean to sit down in the other chair and hands him his flask when Dean takes the seat. "I wasn't telling you to leave him, Dean."

Dean looks down at his hands, turning his ring around and around with his thumb. He feels weirdly old and he feels young at the same time, like that kid on _Third Rock From the Sun_ that was supposed to be older than all the rest of them. He takes a kick of the whiskey, hoping it'll knock the feeling out, make him feel less nervous, less…well, not fragile, because Dean Winchester is no delicate flower, but…unsteady. Off-balance, like someone concussed him when he wasn't looking. "Sam needs me."

It's just the truth, as far as he sees it, a fact. But it doesn't come out like he thinks it's a fact. It comes out defensive and weird and Dean knows he's showing his hand. Whiskey burns in his chest like a tiny star.

Bobby leans back in his chair, kicking one leg—the bad one—out in front of him to let the tendons stretch. Dean fights the impulse to rub his own knee. He's not that old yet, whatever Sam says. "No one's saying he doesn't."

"Well, what the fuck are you saying?" Dean laughs, even though he doesn't really find any of this funny at all. "I mean…Jesus, Bobby…help a guy out here."

Bobby looks aside, dull color coming up in his face under the beard. "Ah, hell, Dean. I'm not your Dad, to be telling you what to do. Probably shouldn't've said nothing in the first place."

"Yeah, well you did. So tell me what the hell you were talking about?"

"I'm talking about _you_ , Dean. You." Dean hands the flask back and Bobby takes a swig of his own before making the bottle vanish in one of his many pockets. "Jesus, sometimes I just want smash your head in—and your father's—in the hopes of knocking some sense into you."

Dean's smoldering annoyance fans up a little hotter, settling in his shoulders, in his taut hands. "Since when is looking out for your family a bad thing?" he demands, boots thumping restlessly on the boards as he shifts. "I mean, I don’t' get you, man. What the hell is it you want me to do?"

Bobby points at him. "Now that. That right there. It's the wrong question."

"Well, maybe I don't know what the right question is!"

"Son of a… What is it that _you_ want, Dean?"

Dean blinks. "What do you mean?"

Bobby's forefinger taps his nose and then he points at Dean again. "You know what I mean."

"No, I really don't." Dean's voice sounds thin and windy, even to himself. 

Bobby sighs again and rubs the ball of his thumb in the socket of his eye. "You come to me, you say 'he needs me'. You say 'he's my brother'."

"Yeah? So?"

"So? So, what about you, Dean? When you're not being your father's man or Sam's big brother, what the hell is it that _you_ want out of this situation? 'Cause your dad can tell you _do this_ and you can worry about Sam until the cows come home, but at the end of the day, you're going to have to live with it, with what you've done. And should this rat-crazy scheme of your father's work, you're gonna have to face up that kid—you remember, the kid you and Sam have been busting your…busting a gasket to have—every damn day."

"I know that!" Dean pinches his ring between his fingers and feels the silver start to bend. He takes a breath. "I know that," he says again, quieter. 

"Okay, but you need to think about that, Dean." Bobby leans across the table, eyes sharp but dark under the curving brim of his cap. "You need to think real hard. About all this."

"You think I don't?" It's too hard to keep meeting Bobby's eyes; Dean looks down and scratches at the inseam of his jeans. "Fuck, man, sometimes it feels like all I do is think about this shit. My head hurts from thinking about it. I should buy stock in fucking Advil for how much." Dean goes from picking at his pants to scratching through his hair, as if he's trying to illustrate his point. "I didn't used to think this much about stuff."

Bobby snorts, commentary Dean could have lived without.

"Sam, okay?" Dean presses his hand against his chest hard. His heart beats crazily back, too fast. He's dizzy. Not drunk dizzy and not hit-on-the-head dizzy; if anything it's a little too close to heart-attack dizzy. "I want Sam." He debates whether to say the rest of it. It's never been much good, telling people what he wants, admitting it out loud, for someone to tear down. But… "I want a baby too—our baby—but…if Sam doesn't…or can't…" Dean shrugs. "It wouldn't matter. It'd be okay. I just want Sam."

He's expecting more, but Bobby only nods, like that was the answer _he_ was waiting for all the time.

And maybe it was.

* * * * *

Bobby leaves the next day. Sam feels kind of nervous about it. He knows he's been kind of checked out, but he'd have to be blind not to see the way Dean's been leaning on Bobby. He doesn't know what it's going to be like if Dean doesn't have that support. Sam doesn't know if he's even capable, let alone ready, to be Dean's support. But it seems like Dean and Bobby came to some kind of agreement or conclusion all on their own, because Dean seems just fine. And not just what passes for 'fine' in their family vocabulary. Genuinely _fine_.

Chris and Dean seem to have come to a truce too. Enough, anyway, that when he staggers out of bed one morning in search of coffee, he finds them laughing over some story about Chris's pregnancy and Lance's _("Lance," Dean mouths over Chris's shoulder at Sam, with a significant wiggle of his eyebrows. Sam snorts and rolls his eyes.)_ frequently hilarious reactions.

Later, Chris gets a call. It's not the first call he's gotten, but it's the first where Chris actually gets up and leaves the room instead of carrying on in increasingly loud and profane terms to whoever's at the other end of the line. Sam sees his face, his eyes, when Chris checks the ID and takes the call and he knows: _Lance_. 

When Chris goes, a couple days later, it's no surprise to anyone, except maybe Chris.

Which leaves just him and Dean.

The thing is, Sam's happy for Chris, he really is. If anybody deserves a little happiness, Chris definitely does. And you've only got to look at Chris for two seconds when he's talking about Lance to know that Lance is what makes him happy. But at the same time, Sam feels this thick anxiety in the back of his throat like the taste of pennies and the feel of lightning just before the sky rains down because, lately, he and Dean haven't done so well on their own.

Sam rubs his thumb across the rough weave of his bandage, too lightly to hurt the damaged flesh beneath. His governmental checkout went a lot better than he expected; mandatory counseling for the next ninety days, but they won't reassign him and he and Dean will have enough time to try again…if that's what he decides to do. Henricksen was an ass, but that's pretty par for the course. 

"Hey."

"Hey." Sam's smile is unfaked as Dean piles next to him on the bench. He lets his hands fall onto his thighs. 

"So I was thinking." Dean puts his feet up on the porch railing, slouching further down to do so. 

"Oh, God! You didn't hurt yourself, did you?"

He expects the shoulder Dean slams into his side and rolls with it, laughing almost too hard to protect himself from the following pinch to his ribs.

"So I was _thinking_ ," Dean says again, with a warning glare and stern twitch of eyebrows, "that with Chris gone, you can stop holding your breath every time we have sex and maybe actually _enjoy_ yourself…"

"I… I like it just fine, Dean," Sam says, blushing and stifled.

Dean huffs impatiently. "Fine, so maybe _I_ can enjoy _myself_ …"

The wood creaks dangerously as Sam whips around, his hand going between Dean's legs. Dean's eyes go comically wide as Sam closes his fingers tight enough to make sure he's got Dean's undivided attention. "You saying you don't enjoy having sex with me, Dean?"

"No!" Dean squeaks, shoulder blades trying to carve through the bench back at the same time he endeavors to keep his groin _perfectly still_. Sam feels laughter bubbling up and works hard to keep his face appropriately menacing. Dean clears his throat and deepens his tone, eyes unmoving from where Sam's hand is closed around his most precious possession. "Not saying that at all. Can't a dude just get laid though? Why does everything have to be so _tense_?" 

"I'm not tense," Sam says with all the serenity of the guy whose dick is not in a vise. "Are you tense?"

"I'm just saying…we've got this prime opportunity to make as much noise as we want for as long as we want…" Dean shrugs, again while trying not to move anything below the waist. It's getting harder for Sam to keep the straight face. "I was even," Dean confides, in the tones of someone conferring a great favor, "willing to let _you_ fuck _me_."

Sam snorts.

"Hey, that's a generous offer!"

"It is," Sam agrees blandly. He drags his thumb roughly along the length of Dean's semi-erect cock and watches his brother's pupils slowly grow wide as he hardens further. Sam can't help it then, laughing deeply and loudly, a lightness swimming through him like he hasn’t felt in months. "Jesus, Dean, you are such a damned horndog!"

Dean bucks shamelessly into Sam's hand, tongue slinking across his bottom lip to leave it pink and gleaming. "Yeah, well…you knew that when you met me."

"You were a _kid_ when I 'met you', dork."

"I was mature," Dean corrects. "For my age. And I think you have us mistaken." He reaches up and slides his hand into Sam's hair, fingertips sliding electric-current-sweet over Sam's scalp. It's a weirdly tender gesture for Dean and Sam has to fight the impulse to close his eyes and tilt his head into it. "And why are we not having sex yet?"

* * * * *

Sam spread under him on the bed—their bed. Sam tangled up with him, long limbs and slim muscle and soft, quiet heat as they grind, cock to cock, face to face. Sam's stubble burns against Dean's lips as they travel the line of his brother's neck. They've been at this long enough that they've both started to sweat and Dean laps up salt, stinging and delicious.

Dean has always liked sex, simple as it is true. He's learned to like—love—sex with Sam, always enthusiastic, always right there with him and kinkier than Dean would've ever guessed (the kitchen table was totally his idea, by the way). 

No one ever had to teach him how to love Sam.

"Dean. Dean—" Head tipped back on the pillow, Sam's voice turns urgent and ragged, moving to the rhythm of Dean's fingers buried inside him. His leg pulls up, the heel tugging at Dean's thigh in plea and command. The end of Dean's name melts in Sam's mouth, turns to a moan.

"Yeah, Sammy." Dean nudges Sam's jaw with his nose; gropes with one hand for the condom he left on the night stand's edge. When his fingers close over it, the package crinkles and his fingertips trace the ridge through the plastic. Dean's bringing it to his mouth to tear it with his teeth when Sam grabs his wrist.

"No." Sam regards him from under the sandy curve of his eyelashes, only the glitter of his eyes to lead the way. "Don't. Go…ah…go without it."

Dean doesn't want to argue with Sam—what guy does?—but he does look at Sam for several long moments of hesitation. Sam shuts his eyes the rest of the way and arches down onto Dean's fingers, flexing all his _really excellent_ inner muscles in a way that closes the argument—for Dean—forever.

He tosses the condom somewhere and reaches for the lube instead, shaking a little with the effort of concentration and pure slutty want as he slicks his dick. 

Sam makes the best faces when Dean slips it to him—surprise, shock, this deep concentration that's a total turn-on and then this blissful pleasure. Dean's only ever had a few partners like that before, the ones that make him feel a million miles long and big, like his cock is the best thing _ever_ , and none of them ever meant even a fraction of what Sam does. Dean watches the **O** of Sam's mouth and doesn't even mind so much when Sam's hand tries to crush his shoulder.

At first, when he gets all the way in, Dean can't do anything but hang there, quivering and trying not to come, because _he is not that guy._ Never had an unsatisfied customer, though Sam's tight enough, hot enough to test his resolve on that one. It's always an effort to go slow, make it good for both of them. It's harder without the condom; it's been a while and Dean always sort-of forgets what Sam's like inside, the way pregnant women—and men, he guesses—forget how bad the pain is, once some time has passed. Some sensations are too intense; searing the brain and memory behind them.

_I want this,_ Dean thinks, as scary-exciting as the first time he thought it. Sam's knees and heels dig at him as he goes in long, deep thrusts. Sam's a pushy, demanding bottom; Dean loves that about him. Unfortunately, the feel of Sam rubbing against his naked cock is too much; he's not going to last. Dean shifts—getting another really awesome mangling of his name from Sam—and wraps his hand around Sam's cock, jerking him in coaxing, erratic bursts.

_I wish…_ Dean thinks as he comes, a thought that whites-out in orgasm before he can get any further than that. It's okay, though. 

Even that's more than he's ever dared ask for in years.

* * * * *

Dean chucks something at him as he climbs from the Impala. It whizzes straight at Sam's head and he fields it awkwardly, still stupid with heat and sluggish from the nap he hadn't planned on taking, right there on the porch.

It resolves itself into a box, wrapped in brown paper. "What's this?" Sam asks, even as he makes out Bobby's strangely neat block-print and return address.

Dean shrugs as he follows the box's path more slowly. "I didn't open it. It's addressed to both of us."

"Weird," Sam says, without really meaning it. "It's only been a couple weeks since he was here."

Dean's shoulders hitch again. He starts to sit next to Sam on the bench, then thinks better of it and perches on the rail instead. Sam can't blame him, even up here and in the shade, it's just _hot_ , sweat trickling down his skin and under his hair. Dean laughs at him for bobbing his hair up in two stubby pigtails, but Sam could give a shit. It's cooler. "Maybe he _really_ misses us."

Sam tears at the plain grocery-bag paper. Underneath is a cardboard box with a note on top. The note's also in Bobby's handwriting.

_Boys,_

Sam rolls his eyes, aware that—to Bobby—they're never going to stop being 'boys'.

>   
>  _Boys,_
> 
> _I know youve had a hard time of it and that your father hasnt helped in that respect. But you know Ive been the middleman between you now for some time and tho I dont agree with all your fathers done I do know he loves you boys with all his heart. Anyway, this package and the note inside are from him and I hope youre not too angry to take it in the spirit its offered._
> 
> _Yours,  
>  Bobby Singer_

Sam hesitates over opening the box, waiting for the familiar, slow-burning surge of his anger. It doesn't come, though. And, as if the realization of it's absence is a key, Sam feels something else open like a door, and blow it's cold wind through him.

"What do you think?" Sam hands the note to Dean, even though he's pretty sure Dean's already read it, even upside-down. 

His suspicion's confirmed when Dean waves him off, chewing on his thumbnail, shoulders hunched. Dean shrugs. Sam can't read his eyes and isn't really sure he wants to. It's been easier to forget: _he's_ the reason John's not here. 

Sam sighs and opens the box. Inside is another box—wooden, this time—and another note, this time in his father's handwriting. Sam hands the letter to Dean right away this time and instead turns the little wood box around in his fingers, looking for a way to open it.

"Boys," Dean reads before stopping and clearing his throat.

>   
>  _Boys,_
> 
> _I've had a long time to think about this. How and where it all went wrong. And the truth is, it's all my fault. I taught you boys to learn from your mistakes…but I haven't been doing so good at that lesson myself. I keep asking you for too much. I keep asking you for things a father has no right to ask of his sons. I'm not real great at admitting I'm wrong or saying I'm sorry but it's only the truth: I was wrong and I am sorry._
> 
> _I don't know if that's enough. I don't know if anything I can say will ever be enough. But I love you boys and I'm proud of the men you've become. It's high past time I stopped being part of the problem and started being part of the solution._
> 
> _It took some doing, but I found something that I hope will help._

Dean looks up and stops reading when Sam manages to get the box open with a popping scrape of wood. Inside the box is a length of rawhide, dyed black, and, nested in it, something golden. Sam snags his fingers in the leather and lifts it free, shaking out the attached pendant so he can see it more clearly. It's a tangle of wire like a bird's nest of metal. In the hollow are three irregular, pearly, charcoal-gray beads, nestled closely together.

"What is it?" Dean asks when Sam holds it up to the sun.

"I don't know." Sam watches it turn and gleam for a few moments before he looks at his brother again. "What does the letter say?"

> _It's not big magic or dangerous. I took the time to find someone I trust. It won't stop anything from happening that was going to happen anyway, but it'll give you as fair as shake as maybe you can have in this world. Thwart a little of that Winchester luck. Maybe enough._  
> 

Sam cups the bauble in his head for another few seconds, considering, then drags the thong over his head. He doesn't feel any different for having it on, but he guesses he wouldn't. Dean looks expressionlessly at him for a second then goes back to reading. 

>   
>  _I've been thinking about you boys too. About all the time we've spent apart. The reasons just don't seem as good as they did when I was making them up. None of us are getting any younger and I miss you. You're all I have left in the world and I can't say I'll ever be the easiest person to live with, but…if you could find it in your hearts to forgive a stubborn old man, I'd like to come back._
> 
> _I'd like to come home._

Sam never does find out if there's any more to the letter; at that moment, Dean's phone rings. Dean fishes his cell out of his pocket and eyeballs the display before he flips it open. "Hey, Bobby." Pause. "Yeah, we got it." Dean's gaze sweeps Sam briefly, as unreadable as before. "Yeah, we opened it. We were reading the letter now."

Sam reaches forward and plucks the cell out of Dean's fingers. "Hey, Bobby. Hey. Yeah. Would you do me a favor? Can you put my dad on the line?"


	26. Epilogue

"So." Gerald McKnight puts his rosewood timer down on the table next to his chair and curls his fingers together over his belly. "How's it going?"

Sam shrugs. He hates McKnight with a dull but fiery passion, the same as he hates all his metaphorical jailers. Time hasn't done a thing to dull the edge of it and he doesn't think it ever will. This hour of his time is held hostage.

At the same time—and despite his awareness that every word he says here is recorded, catalogued, classified and filed—there's a part of him that's grateful for the space of this time to talk, and McKnight is disturbingly easy to talk to. 

The windows are open. Even with that, there's still a faint stench of smoke, permeating everything. Sometimes he can ignore it, doesn't notice it. He's spent his life around this scent. He remembers being a little boy and burying his face in his father's clothes, smelling it there and on his dad's hands and feeling comforted by it. Now it just makes his hands shake. He folds his fingers over the arms of his own chair and breathes deeply.

"It's fine. Better. It's hard to be here."

To his surprise, McKnight smiles. "For me too. Are you still having nightmares?"

_Heat. Surrounded by it, covered in it, a smothering blanket. Can't breathe. Everything wavers, swims. Some of it is heat. Some of it is the blow to his head. He can't really feel the blood trickling down his face, but when he smears his fingers across his skin, the tips come away dripping crimson._

"Some." Sam runs his hand over his hair and is again startled by unexpectedly short bristle. His hair had been badly singed in the fire and what hadn't burnt needed to be shaved off so they could stitch up his head wound. His hair's the shortest it's been since he left for Stanford. Dean's ecstatic. Or…he would be, if he wasn't mother-henning Sam for all he's worth. Sam can't blame him; if Dean hadn't pulled him out of there, Sam would've died. "It's better."

It's not, really, but he doesn't want to revisit the Sons of Eden attack on The Center. His memories of it are fragmentary and his nightmares don't have to embroider much.

"And the baby?"

Sam looks down and realizes his hands mirror McKnight's, folded across his belly. He's not showing yet. The pendant his father sent feels warm against his skin, as it always does. Sam unlocks his fingers and touches it lightly, reverently.

_He can't remember which direction the door lies and the smoke is too thick to see anything. Further away, he can almost sort of hear alarms and the hard rain of the sprinklers over the ringing in his ears, but here in the exam room it's just him and the fire and the wreckage. He wipes more blood from his forehead, his burning eyes and smears it on his jeans. He needs to get out._

"Fine." Sam lets go of the pendant and folds his hand over his stomach again, flat and quiescent. Even more than before, it's hard for him to believe there's anything alive in there. On some level, he recognizes he's afraid to think of it that way. "Dr. Gerhardt says it's doing well. Remarkably well, all things considered."

He doesn't like Gerhardt as much as he'd liked Azarian, another reason to hate the Sons of Eden. Azarian had always seemed faintly embarrassed by their government assigned roles; Gerhardt, on the other hand… Just thinking about the way Gerhardt says _breeder_ makes his fingers tighten and grate against each other until the bones creak.

"And have you told your Custodian yet?" McKnight reaches over the arm of his chair to refill his glass of water then holds the pitcher inquiringly out to Sam. Dry-throated, Sam nods and holds out his own tumbler. "I know you were feeling nervous about breaking the news."

"No, I haven't." Guilt turns the water faintly sour in his mouth. "I mean… I will. I will. I just… I don't want to get his hopes up."

"Or your own?" McKnight lifts one eyebrow.

Sam's lips quirk. "Or mine."

***

Dean is pushing him backwards into the small space between the refrigerator and the counter, nosing at the line of his jaw and his hand curved warm and wide around Sam's side, the thumb following the lines of his abs.

Dean is smiling as he nuzzles at Sam's mouth—not kissing, not yet—and it's hard—difficult!—for Sam to turn his face away and gasp, "Dean…Dean, wait."

"You sure?" Dean shifts his hand between them dragging the heel roughly across Sam's trapped erection. Sam makes a noise in his throat and pushes into the touch. Dean's grin widens and he leans in again to lap messily at the corner of Sam's lips. "Doesn't feel like 'wait' to me."

Sam groans and lets Dean devour his mouth, opening his lips to suck on Dean's tongue like he sucks Dean's cock and he realizes, he's happy. Scared and worried—worried about so many things—but when it's just the two of them, alone and in their home…it's the happiest he can remember being in a long time.

_I don't want to get his hopes up."_

_"Or your own?" McKnight lifts one eyebrow._

_Sam's lips quirk. "Or mine." He looks down at his hands again, thumb brushing over the still-red scars in the vee between his thumb and forefinger, scrawling back nearly to his wrist. The breeder tattoo looks strange and archaic, forced apart by the scar tissue, but still readable. Sometimes the metaphor of it turns his stomach. "It's never going to not be like this. There's never a time that I won't…be waiting."_

_" **'If it be not now, it is to come'** ," McKnight quotes softly. " **The readiness is all.'** But Sam… You have to know there's no way to be ready for something like…like losing a child."_

_**Why do you think I didn't want to go through this again?** "I know that," Sam says instead, carefully keeping his voice level and only a faint quiver on the end to betray him. "Christ, I **know that.** Better than anyone who hasn't been through it."_

_"But that doesn't mean you and your Custodian won't have a perfectly healthy baby **now**. What happened in the past is no earmark for what will happen in the future and this is not the baby you lost."_

_"I know all that!" Sam's fingers skid over his too-short, too-smooth hair again. "I just… I keep losing things. All my life, I've been losing the things that I loved, the things I held onto too much. I don't know if I can do that again."_

_"Sam— What makes you think you have a choice?"_

"I'm pregnant," Sam says. Except he says it with Dean's mouth and tongue still tangled with his and so it comes out only as unintelligible open-mouthed grunts. Still, Dean's eyes open, stiff-haired eyelashes tickling across Sam's cheek. 

Dean's tongue makes a last, lazy swipe through Sam's mouth before he pulls back far enough to ask, "What?"

Sam slides his hands under the frayed hem of Dean's T-shirt and feels the gentle bellows-huff of Dean's ribs expanding and contracting beneath resilient skin. Dean's looking at him—quiet for a change—with his eyebrows pulled in and his mouth glossed with their combined saliva. So instead of repeating himself, Sam blurts out, "I love you."

Dean's eyes cut at him, exasperated, and the muscles in his back jerk as he starts to pull away. Sam tightens his hands around Dean and holds him in place. Dean huffs again, looking everywhere but at Sam, the rims of his ears scarlet. 

Sam sighs and leans his head back against the wall. They have time. For once, they really have time. "I'm pregnant," he says again and _now_ Dean's eyes flick up to him, first surprised and then shuffling through thoughts and emotions as fast as he goes through a deck of cards. 

The unwilling line of his mouth softens, slacks, and Dean's hand shift-slips over from Sam's side to his belly, pressing gently against the skin. It makes Sam feel faintly dirty, the way that simple possessive touch goes straight to his cock, tingling through his balls. Dean's hand rocks and caresses, soft but not tentative. "Really?"

"I'm pregnant," Sam says a third time, feeling laughter bubbling up from his belly. He just wishes he knew if it was real or only hysteria. "Knocked up, with child, eating for two, in delicate condition, in the family way…"

Dean shudders. "Let's not use that last one ever again." Sam watches as Dean sinks slowly to his knees, pushing Sam's shirt up and rubbing his face across the newly bared skin. His stubble burns and his lips tickle and Sam nudges his hips at Dean a little, hoping he'll take the hint. He wants to be fucked so bad he can barely breathe through it, his blood hot and thick in his veins. "How long?"

Sam squirms again, for different reasons this time, and the words jam up in his throat. He's silent long enough that Dean's eyes open, looking up the length of Sam's body in question. Sam clears his throat. 'Two…two months. Almost three."

And then _there_ is the look Sam's been dreading, the donkey-kick of hurt and shock and other, more volatile emotions. It's practically instinct to dart his hand forward and fist Dean's shirt, keeping him from pulling away. 

"I love you," he says again, ignoring the nervous butterfly flutter of his own heart. "I was just scared. I _am_ scared."

The moment draws out, their eyes locked on each other in Winchestery stand-off. Sam keeps his fingers tangled in Dean's shirt, light-headed and shaky and still so hard he could hammer nails. Then finally, slowly, Dean nods. "Yeah, okay." His palm makes a small, half-reverent circle over Sam's belly before he gets to his feet again. "I guess… I guess that's fair."

 _It's not,_ Sam wants to say. _It wasn’t fair at all and I'm sorry._ But that's nothing Dean wants to hear, only comfortable when the scales are tilted against him. So instead, he says it a fourth time, as if repetition can make it more real. And maybe it does. "I'm pregnant."

Dean mouths his way across Sam's collarbones, dampening the cotton of his shirt, up the line of his neck.

"I'm pregnant." Sam hooks his ankle around Dean's calf, urging him closer, urging him to eliminate all the space between them. "I'm pregnant. Our baby. I'm pregnant."

"Sam." Dean raises his head so Sam can see his face; the crooked grin on his mouth, the leaf-green brightness of his eyes. "I think I got it."

Sam's breath goes out of him in a dizzy rush, leaving him feeling unbearably light, as if his Chuck Taylors don't even touch the floor. "Well," he mumbles, as Dean's mouth inches over his, "I just wanted to be sure."

Dean's palm flattens over the center of Sam's torso, pushing his amulet into the skin. Sam doesn't mind. "Don't worry," Dean whispers. "It'll be good. You'll see. I'll take care of you. And her. It'll be good."

"It already _is_ good," Sam answers and it's not a lie.


End file.
